The first episode of Steins Gate had me hooked. Interesting main character, nice murder mystery from the bat, and MYSTERIOUS TIME TRAVEL. It was the 11 episodes after that had me wonder, was this going to pay off? Then by episode 13, everything got too real and blew my face off
Exactly this! Loved the first episode and then was honestly quite bored for a while...and then suddenly WHAM! It really really hit me that I was watching a complete masterpiece.
I know that things happening in the early part of anime series so I kept that in mind in the whole show (Spoiler Alert) , when daru was gonna hack to sern in ep 22 i realized the fucked up shit before okabe did and dried my eyes out for half an hour. The first episode kept me guessing nani the fuck happened. It at least deserves that rank in mal if not better than fma brotherhood. El psy congroo.
I mean there’s a difference between finding the mystery itself confusing, which fair enough is the point. And finding the show itself hard to follow and not being able to keep attention on it because of that.
@@kuraihikari5785 Yet as you watch the show it all still becomes clear. So basically, you'd need to have more patience and a slightly higher attention span than that of a goldfish.
Honestly if i am trying to find some myself without the help of others i usually just do the 3 episode rule but if others recommend i usually watch through the whole thing
What I've noticed these days is that a lot of anime that get popular go full blast during the first few episodes trying to impress its audience, and then gets less interesting as the story goes. I think what really matters is authenticity. Authenticity of character/s, art style, animation would usually tell you if an anime will be able to hold it's candle all the way.
Slow burn stories can be arduous at first but can be worthwhile in the long run, especially if there are twists and turns planned to knock your socks off.
Andrea I think "The Tortoise and The Hare" applies here. Slow and steady wins the race. Trying to rush ahead will likely leave you worn out too soon. Storytelling can be like gardening. You have to cultivate things from a tiny seedling so they can gradually grow into a great tree. Of course, not everyone has that sort of patience sadly.
Andrea For a slow build but a good enough start, try LBX: Little Battlers Experience AKA Danball Senki for one. Other I'm not sure off the top of my head.
The problem with people is that they're plot addicts. To them, if the plot isn't given to them and spoonfed to them immediately, they get bored and wonder why they are watching. If "things are not happening", then they complain that "nothing is happening" and become bored. It's a part of our fast cut, instant gratification culture that was promoted by Hollywood in the 80s. What pulled me into Steins;Gate personally was how well directed the first episode was and how meaningful every camera angle was. This is especially weird considering this was originally a visual novel where everything is so static. But the camera works to create such an emphasis on how exceptionally strange the characters and what is going on around them is. The problem is that most people don't have artistic minds and have been trained by most media culture (both in America and in Japan) to want plot to be fed to them more than anything else. This is in the face of history, where many of the greatest movies have actually been plotless, such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Vertigo, Lost in Translation, Days of Heaven, etc.
by instant gratification do you mean movies because those are meant to covey a storyline within the time of the movie shows on the other hand most of them barely have a real plot its just take these characters and throw them into different situation
Instant gratification has more to do with writing. It's where you immediately give the viewer something that appeals to their desire to have fast paced events happen immediately, and are usually events completely and totally spelled out to the viewer. Something that does not use instant gratification are a lot of old Hitchcock movies, you'll notice they beginnings take their time, are very subtle, and involve good build up, much like Steins;Gate (except Steins;Gate does this over a few episodes). Both don't use instant gratification, but are willing to build up their characters as well as their events. Neither of them spoonfeed you information or instant action and instead create very interesting character scenarios as well as the beginning threads of a plot (assuming there is a plot). Granted, this formula doesn't always work. A person can use this way of doing things, but if they're bad at it, it could end up REALLY feeling slow. But in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, they can spend entire episodes with no continuous plot, but still create interesting themes, character studies, so on and so forth.
i was asking because i had no idea what films and shows you were referring too imo (yeah i know it doesnt count for much) as far as films go we have alot of examples of both side i think its less of a case of being conditioned to want it and more of a case that its easier to swallow so to speak because the ease of understanding it more can join in quicker and through that more immediately enjoy it i also dont believe this is a bad thing either as i think there is a place for media of many types also i believe that we would be having this conversation the other way around if they just made slower pieces with more build up i really believe everything has its own place and thanks for the clarification glad to know a bit more of where you were coming from
Something I love that this guy does is that (most of the time) he titles the clips he's displaying. By doing this I've racked up easily 15 shows to watch over the break. Thanks, man.
@@freshlymemed5680 "Whatever" is actually the asterisk wars and he called it whatever bc he knows it's not worth your time to watch it. Digibro did make a video series on it called "the asterisk wars suck" that is certainly worth watching though.
well it worked. I think I'm gonna give this another try. I initially dropped this midway through the first episode I think. 14 year old me had the attention span of a goldfish
@Satanho well if you like steins gate that makes sense cause none of the characters on that act like normal humans. Only good part of the show was when the main character had a break down. Yes I do not like Stein's gate.
So a good anime 1st episode 1. Introduces characters 2. Gives a goal for the characters to follow 3. Has oh shit or wtf moment 4. Develops the midset required for the series
Sometimes I like being a brainless consumer. Switching off my brain might allow me to enjoy a series more, which in turn enables a wider range of anime for me to watch. But I guess that's because I have nothing better to do :l
this is exactly how i lived sao. i actually thought it was a pretty good show for a while, that is, after i heard why its terrible and re-watched it without binging the majority of it in 1 night
***** Unless you're a child, you're not supposed to take sayings literally. Also I was never saying anything about criticism and its importance. Just making a comment about my own experience as a consumer. Basically your entire comment is just simply pointless. Like writing an essay and then have the teacher tell you that you completely missed the point.
Steins;Gate's first episode is truly a masterpiece to behold... Even after finnishing Steins;Gate 0, it always loops back at the very first episode Even the title is a big foreshadowing... "Prologue of the beginning and end" So it's where it all begins, at the same time it's where it all ends
Also, Digi, not everyone is good at viewing things they like with a strong critical eye. Most people can only carry their critical eyes to the second viewing. Bear in mind also, that even most people who have a strong critical eye like yours, aren't as steeped in the media as you. I could never be an anime critic as you are, simply for having not studied anime as in depth as you. You often know the credits of an anime before you've even read them. I might guess that "so in so has the same voice actor as this anime character, or this pony." That is to say even most who are able to think and ponder shows as deeply as you will probably never have your level of expertise... But i dunno. I've gained more expertise watching your vids than I have with all the anime I've watched... then again If I hadn't watched the anime I'd watched, I wouldn't be able to contextualize your expertise in a manner that allowed me to absorb some of it. But now I'm just rambling.
From my experience, critical eyes are often taught, not learned. The reason you gain expertise from watching Digibro is because he lays out what the critical tools are and how to use them. In the same vein, if you know anyone who takes a college level film studies class, they'll often indicate that they can't enjoy movies in the same way anymore, thanks to the class having shown them how to evaluate all the aspects of a medium. This is also why some people can't shut off their brain and enjoy a 'bad' production. At some point they're brains just automatically pick up "hey, that voice acting is flat" or "this angle doesn't make any sense" and et cetera.
funny thing its the opposite for me. anime that have good beginnings tend to end up being bad. while animes with slow beginnings or boring tend to get better in the long run
Steins;Gate's first episode is my favorite single episode of any anime, ever. Just rewatch it after finishing the series. Trust me. It's quite literally perfect.
Steins;Gate is good but it won't fit everyone's preference. I'm not into mystery as I can get pretty bored, but I respect the pieces of media especially if they're good (like steins;gate)
No one knew the first episode was so perfect until it was over though. I rewatched it a few episodes before I finished the series and again when I finished the series. 10/10
ppyporpeem Well, every show DIgi has found to be great has done just that, and he's seen plenty of anime. So, um, why not? Not every show *does* strike a chord in one episode, but those shows aren' great so I don't see the issue here.
I agree, the first episode of fullmetal alchemist seemed so boring to me. It was the most cliche thing, a shonen protagonist overpowering the seemingly unbeatable desert city mayor. And then it picked the fuck up.
I personally love the beginning of Steinsgate because it's masterful in developing and fleshing out all the individual characters, getting us to care for them more and more before we get to the part that completely fucks with your emotions. It's brilliant, the opening everytime I watched it and all the innuendos (hints) they left before that moment you could tell that shit was going to go down. FMA Brotherhood's opening two episodes are freaking disgrace to such a great anime and it's why everytime I try to get my friends into it, they can't because they never get past those two episodes. I'm glad I watched it with my eldest brother because he warned me and told me to stick with it because he believed I was going to love it. Both of these animes are in my top 3.
Kenner Lyjo Morala no way. The first episode of fmab was brilliant not Only for explain the alchemy showing it uses but for connect things that Will happen later in the beggining showing that everything was planned since the first episode.
I've found the best animes are often slow-burns, but that does not mean the earlier episodes are "bad." Animes are often written in a way that's closer to a novel than a western tv series. Would you say the early chapters of a book are "slow" or "boring" because they focus on establishing the setting and characters, as well as laying breadcrumbs for what will happen later? If the answer is "yes", then it's safe to assume you aren't an avid reader. The first 11 episodes of Steins;Gate are actually a master class in how to pile many layers onto your story. Without them, episodes 12-24 could not have been the absolute mindfuck that they are.
Man, I've never watched an anime better than Steins;Gate and I think that it doesn't get the attention it deserves. I see people talking about their fave animes and most of them doesn't even count Steins;Gate in their top 5. It's just really sad... cuz I have such a big respect and love for it.
I disagree with your stance. Firstly, it depends on what you look for in anime, is it the theme? The story? The characters? Speaking of narrative, certain anime can be taken as long-form narrative and shouldn't be judged based on a single episode merit. Shows that are based on novels and visual novels, for example. It's like watching a movie and judging it based on the first 5 minutes. Slice-of-life and comedic shows do tend to be more episodic and their first episodes can be more representative of the general quality of humor. That being said, there are shows that deliberately go out to trick the audience by pretending to be something they're not. Haruhi, Madoka, Higurashi all have beginning episodes that are very different from what they eventually turn into. If you're able to catch on to the hints and references in the beginning, fine. But if you aren't able to, you really do need to watch ahead to make sense of everything that happened before hand. Also, are we talking about personal taste? Or are we talking about some form of objective quality standard here? Those are two very different concepts. Regarding the latter, shows should never be reviewed without having seen the entire thing.
The notion that it's like judging a film on the first 5 minutes is very misguided. There's a huge difference between 5 minutes and 22 minutes. It's not really a matter of percentage, it's a matter of how much time you spend getting to see what the nature of the work is. Haruhi, Madoka, and Higurashi all have great first episodes that give lots of information about what the show is going to be.
I'd like to add to Digibro that an Anime gets a lot more done in the first 22 minutes than a movie does in 5. In 22 minutes you've got the main cast, the setup, the premise, the art and writing style. In 5 minutes a movie has barely started the prologue and you know basically nothing about the rest of it. And like he said in the video, a good show never has a bad start. If you don't like a show after seeing 1 episode there's a good chance you won't like it in general. I speak from experience when I say that shows that were bad all the way through almost always started with a bad experience of the first episode, and that all shows I've watched that I consider good all had a good first episode. Shows like for example Kiznaiver (to pick something recent), which starts off slowly and a lot less intense than the rest of the series, still has a pretty good first episode. In that episode we get introduced to the cast, setting etcetera. If one doesn't seem to like the show after watching the first, they probably won't like the second and third of it either. I've yet to experience a show that went from bad to good after 3+ episodes.
It really depends on how you define bad or good. If you're one who judges the quality of a show based on character arcs and plot, as opposed to themes, setting or mood, an anime with a macro-narrative that spans the entire season can only be judged based on its entirety (or more than just the first episode). Believe me, I've had to struggle to force my friends to go though the first couple of episodes of Shin Sekai Yori before they started to agree that the show was heading anywhere, only to have them applaud the ending's twist. Perhaps they're not as patient or perceptive, but for them, I always suggest watching more than a couple of episodes to get a good grasp of the story progression. Especially when the first couple of episodes are all episodic like Psycho-Pass.
Maybe you found the 1st episodes of those shows great but the point the user is trying to make is that they don't reflect the true nature of the show. If people followed your logic then you'd have people dropping Madoka Magica if they don't like MahouShoujo anime. I could give you more examples of shows that started off weaker or don't reveal their true nature in their first episode. You have shows like Akame ga Kill, Clannad or Shiki that evolve into something totally different the more you watch. This isn't only limited to anime. There are manga that get A LOT better with time. The two greatest examples are Tokyo Ghoul, which starts off really weak (I noticed that you've dropped it) but becomes godlike after around 50 chapters and OnanieMasterKurosawa that seems like a sick ecchi femdom manga at first but suddenly turns into something very deep and complex. To be completely honest I think you can't even have an opinion of most shows unless you watch them whole (except for long running shonen). You can never 100% accurately predict how a show is going to turn out and there is always the possibility of your missing out on something great. The only person you are harming with such a stance is yourself because you are limitting yourself to shows with stronger starts and reject those that progressively get better.
16:00 when you realize you've listened to 15 solid minutes of an exceptional anime's merits and you've only gotten up to the opening credits. I was hooked from the start man- your analysis is not only impressive, but also incredibly captivating. Correction: analyses xP I'm watching all your videos now before I start any new anime. My deepest gratitude for the divine guidance you've bestowed on this planet. It's greatly appreciated.
I use the "three episode test" if I'm trying to get someone who doesn't watch anime to watch some anime. It works a fair amount where I am pretty sure just one episode would fail.
Steins;Gate is just great from beginning to end. It just starts out confusing. But confusing isn't bad per se. It's Steins;Gate. It's time loops galore. We start in the middle of one. Of course it will be confusing. But Steins;Gate does it with grace.
I have fallen in love with your voice after watching only one of your videos. You are truly amazing at giving overviews and helping to give tips, while also showing your own personal interests without appearing completely biased. I'm so glad I found that video in between all the many recommendations for anime openings and whatnot.
See, I thought the same thing, but unlike a lot of people, this made me extremely disappointed with it, as I felt it went way downhill after a few episodes.
There are people who love science fiction but are repulsed by moe otaku culture. Said people would absolutely cream their pants over the second half of Steins;Gate, but be so utterly turned off by the first half that they never make it to the meat of the story.
I think I was the opposite... I was into for the first few and slowly lost interest... I mean I finished it and didn't mind it, but it was hard to watch. I am still not sure why... I loved the characters but something about it was hard to watch, normally I can binge a ton of episodes at a time but I could only watch a few in one sitting.
I am not surprise. The show forgets to engage the viewer in what it is trying to represent. It makes the view confused in what to think and not engaged in the world. Heck you are barely engaged in the characters at least it try's to do.
what makes a great anime? an anime that isnt focused about oversexualized characters everywhere with bouncing boobs nad cringey vocabulary from the girls. those features are just there to attract viewers and honestly ruin the anime so much
Roy • I don't even know why people make those kinds of characters. Who actually likes them other than creepy ass weaboos? It's unrealistic, completely not needed, necessary, or appropriate!
I think you explained your reason well: You already have a pretty extensive knowledge of directors, writers, and studios that you can use to your advantage to judge shows much more quickly and confidently than many other people. On the other hand, a reason I tend to like the 3 episode rule is both because A) I'm still reaching that level of knowledge and B) There's this part of me that wants to believe that maybe, just maybe, this will be the series where that direction/writer/whatever blossoms. Not to mention, the fact that you had Gintama as the exception to the rule means exceptions exist - exceptions that could mean missing out on some great shows if you don't use the 3 episode rule. Simply put, some viewers have more patience than others in fear of missing out. Some, on the other hand, feel enough good anime exists that the time taken to making sure one series or another is really not that great seems superfluous. I can see both POVs on this.
Well, he stated that the inversion of the scenario isn't true. A show that started good can obviously always go to shit. But it's far less common for a show that starts out bad to end up good.
Take a good premise and just fuck it right up with every episode as it goes. They could have waded in that MMORPG theme for so long and tackled a lot of cool multi-player themes. Instead they focused on the main character getting pussy and turning everything into fairies. Dropped.
+Zac (BadLore) thank god I'm not the only one who thought of that. They could of easily made SAO a long running fantasy series with with lots of suspense. That would of made deaths of characters a lot more impacting. But no, they had to rush shit. And now I can't even remember or feel bad about that one random girl dying in the first season.
The first episode of Haruhi Suzumiya, while bizarre, does give you a pretty good idea of the basic personalities of the characters (Yuki's cold and emotionless, Mikuru is an awkward moeblob, Kyon is snarky as fuck and has a crush on Mikuru, and Haruhi is energetic and so full of herself that she'd turn out a low-budget pile of trash short film and be obliviously proud of it) and her short film being a giant clusterfuck of sci-fi, fantasy and supernatural tropes turns out to be foreshadowing when almost everyone in said film turns out to be a clusterfuck of sci-fi and supernatural tropes in real life.
Let's not forget the three aberrations that came out in the trashy short film: the eye-bullet thing followed by camera cut, the talking cat, and Koizumi's intense magic aura. This gives the viewer a clear indication that this isn't just about random high schoolers, but that there actually is something otherworldly going on with these characters.
I agree though the first episode terribly confused me. I thought I was accidentally watching a filler, clicked on the wrong episode or accidentally skipped to season 2 at first. I was so relieved when I watched episode 2 and things seemed normal.
I happen to agree with the steins; gate point the first episode of the show introduced me to the characters and built up the chemistry between them then the last episodes sent me through an emotional rollercoaster. This is how character development is meant to be done! How am I supposed to care about the characters if I have had barely anytime to get to know them or their relationships
If you can pick out holes and fallacies in a persons' argument that plague the rest of their point, doesn't that make it harder to want to go through and listen to the rest of that argument knowing that it's based in those same holes and fallacies, and those incongruities (is that word) keep rearing their ugly head when they try to keep making points?
To be fair Clannad gets starts to get interesting at the start of the second episode, HXH takes a bit longer to be interesting, Jojo 2012 ramps up after a certain mask. While hindsight shows us that good shows were good in one way or the other at the beginning, I think most people are in the right for giving shows a bit more than 1 episode.
As someone just getting into Hunter x Hunter I've enjoyed the starting arc thus far. I like how the exam has a variety of challenges, and the show has been good at build up thus far where I look forward to each episode weekly. I've been trying to avoid spoilers as well as I can. All I knew about the series that hasn't happened yet is related to Gon.
Digi, I get your perspective, but you gotta understand mate; it's simply that not many people think like you. Not to say you should stop this video series, as it is a fine display of your analytical prowess, but obviously perspective is the origin of all thought. But here's what would be more interesting for this: watch a new ongoing anime and apply your powers of prediction there and then watch the rest. It's easy to say that Gurren Lagann or Code Geass set-up the ideas they'd be tackling in the first episode in hindsight, but to me the execution from ep. 2 in both got at the heart of what a "normal" episode looks like for both shows.
It's like you went back in time and teaching primitive people how to create fire...How about teaching something actually challanging for you?Stay in present time and teach us something we don't know...We all know Steins Gate's episode 1 was great for gods sake =_=
"But here's what would be more interesting for this: watch a new ongoing anime and apply your powers of prediction there and then watch the rest. " Watch his Asterisk War Sucks series.
".We all know Steins Gate's episode 1 was great for gods sake =_=" It's like you didn't even watch this video. A lot of people think the first episode is not great, hence "it get's better".
I think the three episode thing is for the less refined consumer... like me. We do our thinking after the episode, if at all. Our primary goal is to be entertained and so as long as a show is not boring, and there is nothing better to do, we will probably watch it. People like myself tend to not notice the quality of things like direction, instead focusing on action, obvious art style and occasionally music and plot (depending on the person). Many people will have certain things that will turn them off of a show but it would generally be on a more obvious level- things like a certain character, presence of object, fanservice, or preachy nonsense. I just watched your "How to recognize a bad anime" video and am mildly disappointed that comments were disabled. It is quite obvious that you are a refined viewer so I would like to show appreciation that you don't look down on less refined viewers such as myself. Also, I like the idea of quality of premise versus quality of everything else. As an unrefined viewer I look at the premise first. If the premise is good the show just has to avoid shooting itself in the foot to keep my attention. I can overlook a lot for a good premise. I liked what I saw of Gate, for example, despite its obvious flaws. However, if the premise does not appear within 3 episodes, or by 3 episodes I am bored, well I may as well cut my losses. Sadly enough, I have a sinking suspicion that I might be an above average viewer. That scares me... Maybe I will start paying more attention to these things, do the whole critical thinking thing. Also, sometimes I just need to allow 3 episodes to get over the rush of a cool premise and to let myself see that a show sucks. Also, label those spoiler alerts man.
is not so much unrefined as the fact that digi needs to watch at least one episode of every single new anime and then watches allot of old anime. while most casual viewers only start watching an anime because there was something that already interested them.
also one of the best comment in this entire comment thread. and he probably disable comment on that one because it got lots of view that never watch the first two part and made comments that did not need to be made if you have watch the first 2 parts first
no one is going to read this. i think an often overlooked aspect of any series is the way one looks at it. what i mean is the expectations (if theres way too much fight in your slice of life or too much jokes in a drama) and also what you get from it (if the story is one big metaphore it means nothing if the viewer doesn't understand it). some series like kuregahime and kill la kill drasticly improoved from mediocre to all time favorite like this
Many good shows just keep doing worldbuilding in first episodes, and the action itself begins later. Inexperienced viewer can perceive it as boring. So that's where three episodes rule came from.
Mirotokiwa I didn't say that you cared about critics, also, before FMAB, there was Seiji Mizushima's version, which, even though at some point wasn't canon anymore, people knew it was a good anime.
I've never dropped an anime. There have been some "meh" anime that I've watched, but I'd rather finish it (unless it's like 200 episodes) than just stop it.
***** Plus I have a very broad taste in anime, so it's extremely hard to make me not like one. Even ones that I hated like Black Butler and ones that everyone hates like Sword Art Online, I finished them because why the fuck not.
I actually have never done "The Test." Ever. My belief with bad writing is this... if it's bad in the beginning, most likely it's going to stay bad. That's how we judge other forms of media, right? If the beginning is awful I'll be damned to keep watching.
Can you imagine doing that with literature? "oh Master and the Margaretta. Dropped I don't care for the description in this poor prose of the bar." And dropping it after a page.
+Julian di Jorio How do you drop something after a page? lmao. Sorry for not clarifying. For books you'd obviously have to read through some chapters, but really at a certain point if you don't like it then close the book. But when someone doesn't like a book I usually never hear, "hey, read the second one it's so much better."
+AnOverdoseOfTuturu That's what works best for stuff I've seen. A lot of stuff I've dropped just really wasn't worth my time watching. There's some shows I stall, but I don't have the patience to look through three bad episodes.
+AnOverdoseOfTuturu I usually only do this for pretty bad shows. Anything mediocre or I'm not so sure about I may keep watching, but it's got to have something I like about it.
As a writer/story analyst, something like Legend of the Galactic Heroes or Monster may start slow compared to Steins;Gate or Texhnolyze, but one episode is enough of a showcase of how good the writing is to sell me on the series.
Biggest problem I have with this video... 3:08 "For starters lets look at stein's gate" Note the time index... 3:08 of 24:19 and note, he ONLY talks about stein's gate after that. That's 21 minutes of nothing but gushing over stein's gate.I'm not pro or against stein's gate.. but "for starters" implies he's going to cover multiple first episodes to help prove his case. He doesn't. In fact the visuals from the rest of the video come from multiple episodes, not just the first so that it also a misrepresentation. So it's not even relevant to his idea that you only need to see the first episode. I feel he has NOT proven his case about only needing to look a the first episode.. and sadly, because of only 3 minutes on his theory and the other 21 on ONE anime alone... it feels more like a promotion piece for stein's gate than anything.
I wouldn't have a problem if he does. It just right now, seems a little thin, ya know?But if all he focuses on Stein's gate... yea that would be a problem.
Luckily he won't, Digi is going to do one on Lucky Star next so maybe you'll like that next video more. One thing for sure is that he definitely has a lot of moxy for making such a bold claim about teaching us to be able to determine the quality of an anime in one episode, like I'm skeptical about this but I'm along for the ride.
Well. I'm hoping he can prove his case. It would be worth watching but.. as it stands now? this all feels like only a set up to improve stein's gate's rep and little else.
my First episode test: no's: unrealistic pantyshot. Female tsundere (male is atleast new). girl falls on boys face with any bodypart. anyoing sister. (sick of overdone ecchi). childhoodfriend who suddenly shows up. mainly perverted MC. Stereotyps. ... ... ... pretty much stereotypes and ecchi. had too much of it. yes factors: realistic Characters. awesome opening. Breaking stereotypes/Parody. Magic and technic mixed and explained. dark setting. sarcastic/ironic Humor. Breaking fourth Wall. Violance, verbal aggressivitiy, no censored blood and Guts. Evil wins. Because... awesome
I feel like your fourteen. Because I was into the exact same thing when I was fourteen. Anyway fourth wall breaking isn't good because it slows down deep immersive story. It also create many canon events. Like when characters wave at the camera and walk along like nothing happened.
Lightning I am nineteen and am just sick of getting the same content in different ways, after watching most of the Mainstream animes and many little ones between them. Well, young on the Inside i guess :3 I just hate ecchi because i got to much of it XD. Breaking fourth Wall is not like you meant, i think of it more as an easter egg. I love eastereggs, thats just why. Deep stories are great of course, one of the main reasons to watch an anime. I search New things, i guess, those who can give me New ways of thinking, like a good book. I admit, i may appear childish, but i think life is boring without the inner child :)
Dennis Bonn try watching older anime. A lot of people don't because the animation is different. Watch something like BERSERK. It is ...definitely different from most anime.
Though it's an astounding review of the first episode of Steins Gate...it would have been great to see tips and points on how to determine "good animes based on the first episode." Still, well done
Be informed about the staff and about things like cinematography. That's the point he was making. If the staff behind a project has a good filmography, than the chances are better that the series might be worth a damn. If the series has great cinematography, than the chances are higher that the project has competency in it's production.
It didn't really appeal to him after the first few episodes, and came off as pretentious though. He has said that he doesn't really get it though, and that he'd love an in-depth analysis of it to explain to him its appeal.
yeah the first arc in hxh is just so incredibly bland and boring its by far the worst arc in it, but the 3 episode rule doesnt really apply to it since its a whole entire arc
I hear people say this a lot and I disagree completely. I feel it was meant to have a light-hearted feel to it to lower your guard for the later arcs where the show becomes unbelievably brutal. A sort of setup and payoff.
But why would you watch something if you hated it? While I agree that HxH gets vastly better as time goes on, the beginning was simple but enjoyable fun. I mean, even early on we had interesting things at play such as the enjoyable personalities of the main cast, the menace & intrigue of Hisoka, the kinda questionable morals & methods of the Hunter's Association, and a really enjoyable Exam premise. I agree that the first 3 episodes were a bit rough (I actually stopped watching for a few weeks, not by choice as much as out of lack of desire) but after I started episode 4 I marathoned right through the rest of the Hunter Exam & Zoldyck Family Arcs. There's no way I would watch something 20+ episodes (longer than a lot of anime!) if I didn't enjoy it, much less hate it. Even when it was just the beginning, I found a lot to chew on and like in it. +Eternal_Rivals I dunno, I do't think the first episode was bad. (Though I'm glad I actually read the manga's first chapter a short time before I started the show, leaving out Kite & Gon's flashback at the start is really the only major problem I have with the show overall) It had a really upbeat and adventurous tone with some great animation that drew me in. I had heard a lot about HxH's great reputation and I was big into One Piece at the time, (tho I disliked many other long form shounen) and both its legacy & a really good first episode hooked me. The first 3 eps are definitely a bit weaker, and as I mentioned from a combination of business and laziness I didn't watch the next episode for a few weeks, but when I did I watched all of that first arc in a matter of 1-3 days hard to remember which. I can't imagine actively disliking or even hating a show, and watching that much of it. I haven't watched much anime that I seriously dislike mostly because I'm kinda a bit too selective with which shows I watch at times but whenever I watch a show and I dislike or even "hate" I waste no time dropping it. Some good examples - Black Bullet - I remember thinking this had a kinda cool premise and I had no real knowledge of how bad ln adaptations were getting. So I watched the first episode and...the animation felt wonky the characters and setting left no impression it felt needlessly self-important and I was just completely uninterested. I never watched the second episode. Akame ga Kill - This show was really popular and I had heard some of the hype. I watched the first episode, and actually quite liked it. After the first 4 episodes though I had come to really despise it. The tonal shifts, generic characters, extremely "edgy" & "shocking" violence & sex the 1 dimensional (or less) villains, and just a really juvenile & stupid worldview pretending that it was a dark & gray look at morality, when it couldn't be more painfully black & white. I dropped that like a brick.
Excellent points as always Digi! Personally, I've always struggled to stay committed to getting through the first few episodes of a series if the pilot episode didn't catch my interest in some way. People forget that the first episode is meant to act as a hook to get potential viewers interested, and if a show takes longer than 3 episodes to "get good", you'll have lost a significant portion of potential fans right off the bat. No amount of pestering from the remaining diehard fans about how the series gets good by the halfway point is gonna convince me to slog through the story to get to said good parts. I mean, it's fine if the show has flaws here and there, but if a good chunk of the overall story is bad or (even worse) boring, then I see no reason to force myself to keep watching.
(but if a good chunk of the overall story is bad or (even worse) boring, then I see no reason to force myself to keep watching.) I felt this way about death note after L died the arc about some corporate executive leading to some chase on a bridge I forced my self to get to this point but I see what your saying I will never watch the ending of death note because this one arc I've tried literally 5 times and kept falling asleep even sitting up I fell asleep sitting up why did I put myself through that cause every one said it was good and it was but post L's death I just can't minus a few episodes
You & @theMoporter are arguing semantics to a ridiculous degree lol. A pilot in the Western Sense is rarely something that happens in Japan, yes, but I think it's pretty clear that the guy just is talking about regular first episods as that's kinda what this whole video's about lol. It's a pointless argument.
Yeah this makes more sense otherwise it would just be an argument about perspectives. Some shows start slow or boring and became a favorite later on (One piece took 30-50 episodes to get there). But you might tell you found potential in it right at the first episode and that will be just your perspective and others might feel differently. Exactly the same with shows that have awesome first episodes and fail to deliver same punch after 2 episodes. I still feel 3 episodes is a good measure to check if the anime interests you unless you have pointers to identify the bad ones right off the bat.
+Digibro I am going to vomit, wanna no why? Because my friends say future diary is the best anime ever and I tell them: "You guys are Fucking idiots why? Because who smack your mother over the head with a mallet and threat to kill your dad, locks you up in a Fucking attic where you were drugged and about to see your friends about to suffocate and shit and shoots one of your friends in the thigh with a cross how and did I mention she mind fucked you making you believed that you can save all your friends you killed when becoming God...Like after that you have sex with her oh did I mention she TRIED TO KILL YOU AFTER WARDS??? but noooooo you still have the will to risk your life and she kills herself and you can do anything as God but nooooo you sit in your lair acting like a bitch."
I'm not good at analyzing anime so I'm only looking for anime that are enjoyable. It also takes me a while to really get a good feel for a show, its characters, or its premise so giving shows three episodes really helps. Also, when I give a show three episodes, I can tell if it was a show that has only a good first episode or if the other two are just as good. But, that's just me and how I watch anime.
It's okay to not understand as well when you're new. When I was new I'd watch whatever I could find, good or bad. Now I better understand through years of experience.
Okayu P I mean, I've been watching for 5+ years now but I'm the kind of person to miss things that are hinted at or things that people would notice in an artistic analysis.
I also loved Stein’s Gate from the very first episode. I have to admit it was confusing to a degree, but Okabe was just such a great character to me that I had to follow where the series led. Also, it’s set in 2010 and having watched this show for the first time less than a year ago, elements of the show felt nostalgic to me. Things like crt tvs and the general vibe of the setting gave me that feeling as I deeply cherish those times in my life
This is such a false equivalent. Everyone's argument is that you can't tell a show is going to be good or bad from the first episode alone. That's why people ridicule your "drop after 1" policy. Turning around and saying, "Oh yeah well show me any show that didn't have a great episode and then became great, except I get to decide if the first episode is bad and that the show is good enough to be called great." has nothing to do with the original point. We could mock you by simply pointing to your last episode and saying, "Cowboy Bebop's first episode isn't great. You said yourself that the only reason it's good is because you've watched the whole show and a bunch of other media as an adult that gave you perspective on it." We could say Hunter x Hunter has a mediocre first episode because it doesn't even get to anything that makes the series great until a few episodes later. Heck we could stop filtering our view through only anime and point to shows like X Files, Star Trek TNG, or Black Mirror and point out how bad to mediocre those shows are with their first episodes. But that's not the point. The point is that all you're saying is that you've never watched anything that wasn't great from the get go, and there's nothing good you've missed by dropping a show right away. That's fine if it's your personal policy as someone who consumes media because hey, we don't have all the time in the world to watch every terrible show in hopes it gets good. We're just pointing out that you're running a pretty huge amount of confirmation bias is all, and you sound ridiculous trying to tell people that they're "wrong" about their first impressions when you have hindsight helping out.
I like steins gate at the first glance, for me it's already thrilling at the beginning, too many stuff that intensely mysterious. idk, maybe I just like being curious basically. I wish I can rewatch it again without knowing what's going to happen lol.
Digibro doesn't appear to understand the word 'statistics', and somehow thinks that the first episode can only be either "really good" or "really bad". The 3 episode rule is a -limit- on indeterminability. If the first episode is kinda good, but you're not sold on the premise, or kinda bad, but has characters that you like, then you need more information to decide whether the series is worth sticking with. However that is itself balanced against the time that you're spending trying to decide. You reach perfect information when you've watched *all* of a series' episodes, but by that point you've lost all the time that the optimization of whether or not to watch the show was designed to use or free. 3 episodes is enough time that you'll have reached a point where you're very unlikely to swing to the other side from your current evaluation, and you're very likely to have reached a yes/no determination. The 3 episode rule has never been about, "You must watch three episodes before you can decide." It's, "You should be able to decide (with a high degree of confidence) by the end of the third episode." Each episode reduces your margin of error. If you had a 20% margin of error after the first episode, and evaluated it at 60%, then maybe it's really good, or maybe it's not really that good; you could still go either way, and need more information to make a decision. On the other hand, if you evaluated it at 80%, then it doesn't matter even if you overestimated a lot; you're still going to like it more than dislike it. In that case, you don't need 3 episodes, since you've already made a decision you can be confident in. Digibro seems to only evaluate things at the extreme ends, *or* has a naturally better margin of error estimate. Either way, good for him; he can make his choices based on one episode. However statistics isn't about one person, nor is it about one show. And for a more concrete example, Netflix released statistical data on their library of shows that showed how many episodes it took for the audience to get 'hooked' - that is, how many episodes do people watch before at least 70% of the remaining audience watches the entirety of the rest of the show? The vast majority of the time, that was 2-3 episodes, with a few at 4, plus some random outliers. Pretty much giving proof to the 3 episode rule being a real phenomenon. Now, you *might* turn that around, and have the 3 episode rule of trying to get people to watch 3 episodes be an attempt to force the 'hooked' status on someone, in that if you can get them to watch at least 3 episodes, they're more likely to keep watching after that. However I don't expect that to work terribly often. 3 episodes is descriptive and informational, not prescriptive.
Well said! I always give a show 3 episodes whether I know I like or hate it because with how long the average series is, things can happen very quickly for short seasons. When you see a series lasting only 12 episodes, 3 is a great determiner because you can quickly grasp the pace and feel of the show, especially if you've read it via manga or light novel previously. However if a show is 24-26 episodes long, 3 episodes is about the right amount of time to introduce new characters and concepts that were previously unknown to the audience/characters. I can't recall a single anime that I've dropped after 1 episode unless I found the series absolutely atrocious. In fact, most animes I initially hate episode 1, I give them the chance to redeem themselves. For example, I hate Black Butler with a burning passion. I hated episode 1, but I gave it a couple more to see if maybe I was just being bashful. Turns out my initial reaction remained. I despised it, but only after seeing what kind of character and story progression it was going to provide. I rarely ever flat out hate a show. There is usually some redeeming qualities so that if someone asks I can say, "Well I personally wasn't a fan of 'x' but if you enjoy 'abc' you might like it." Attack on Titan was a prime example of an anime that had a lot of great qualities but I don't like the show. It had great characters, an awesome premise, and honestly some of the best damn animation I've seen in years. However it was a slow, horrendously paced show that left too many questions unanswered episode to episode. I did watch the entirety of the first season, mostly because I did a group watch with it. The animation hooked me, the characters were all fairly likeable/tolerable, but I was just bored to tears.
yeah i totally agree with you. Even anime with a great 1st episode becomes boring after a few episode, it happens alot in manga. This digibro guy has no idea of what he's talking about. I always watch anime to the last episodes even if it's a mediocre i only stop watching it if i get bored and decide if i watch the rest, and i also watched many anime so i can tell that digibro has done some research on the anime he highlighted specifically but that's only a small fraction of how to recognize a great anime but really? in one episode he's gotta be a kidding. It's a shame that many who watch his video looking for a good guideline on "how to recognize a great anime" are disappointed, it is very disappointing and very annoying. I only got to 16 minutes of his video because i know it's full of crap the rest of it, just like how to recognize a great anime in one episode i recognize his video full of crap talking about this studio that actor that director i think he needs to improve his reasoning skills because it's full of mess.
Am I the only one who really didn't like the first episode of Fairy Tail? I didn't continue watching so I don't know if it snowballed. Death Note, my favorite anime, had a first episode that hooked me.
I can personally tell you, from watching every. Fucking. Episode. Of Fairy Tail / Fairy Tail 2014, it's pretty fucking bad, however the mood drastically changes from the first episode with a darker tone.
I didn't get into it the first time as well, went away and watched some other anime, after the second time I was hooked, now I'm waiting for the next season, which is meant to be sometime this year I think...? :)
Eh, I have hope for it, I like it but I get the plot drags on so so much. It's been 2 big ass seasons and I'm still not quite sure what the plot is supposed to be. E.G: Naruto has a lot of fillers, but despite that the story is generally well paced. Fairy Tail is extremely slow even without the filler arcs
I personally like animes that do old things in new ways. Like Okami-san and her Seven Companions. Each main character represents a character from a classic fable or fairy tale, and the show is using the characters and modern-day situations to re-tell those stories in creative ways. It's a really great show, imo and it's always gonna be one of my faves, even if it did have a pretty short run time. It was handled with respect, dignity, and love to create a genuinely great show.
People tend to regard things they are invested in more highly regardless of its actual quality. Could it be possible that after watching a couple of episodes people start to have an implicit idea that "the show can't be all bad, I've watched three episodes already". The same effect is seen in people giving higher ratings to products labeled as more expensive, even if the ones being compared are identical.
Sunk cost fallacy. It's basic cognitive dissonance. I've already spent so much time with this series, so if it was awful, I'd be an idiot for putting up with the trash for so long. But I'm not an idiot! Therefore, the series is actually good. I swear, a disturbing proportion of One Piece's fandom is in this camp. I kept getting arm-twisted into watching it, but always wound up dropping it after a few episodes. It felt like I was just watching to make friends who loved it shut up. I hated pretty much everything about it. To be fair, I don't particularly like shounen as a genre, but if I need to skip giant portions of the series or subject myself to 100+ episodes "before it gets good," imma just go watch something else.
as someone who only watched a romcom before it when my friend forced me to, steins;gate very much was my first proper anime and i can't tell you how impressed i was when I watched it, I keep getting obsessed with it so much that I've decided not to rewatch it till i finish learning Japanese so i can feel that thrill when o watch it again
Wow, u've got really extraordinary analysing skills and ability to pick up what looks like insignificant details to the untrained eye, and also a talent for bringing them into light! I can honestly say i was impressed by your speech mister, you've got a smart head on your shoulders ^^. My hats off to you!
I think the thing that bothers me the most about your argument is how you claim it stemmed from your followers listing 3-episode rule anime that you coincidentally liked from the first episode. Anime that are recommended to be given the 3-episode rule are typically ones that have slower beginnings, and are therefore more likely to drop the show because they find it boring. This rule is touted not because a show has a 'bad' first episode, but because a show's first episode is devoted largely to setting things up. For viewers like you or I this isn't problematic, but for many viewers this is not the kind of beginning that gets them invested into an anime or other kind of show. While you do take the time to preface this video (a whopping three minutes in) by saying, "bearing in mind of course that this is all a matter of personal taste in the long run," I'm utterly confused by you needing 24 minutes and an additional two parts to explain your perspective. I appreciate that you feel the need to explain yourself to your followers, but you and I both recognize that this is an extremely subjective subject matter, and I'm not sure what kind of benefit you're expecting. For the majority of people, you should be able to recognize whether you will like an anime or not without even seeing a single episode of the show. My drop list is extraordinarily low because I know my own tastes, and I know how to read the signs and determine whether I'll have any interest in a show just by glancing at some background information and a synopsis, and maybe a quick glance at its preview if I'm on the fence about it. If you want to benefit your followers and subscribers the most, these 24 extraordinarily long minutes of explanation would be best spent teaching people how to recognize anime they'll enjoy without even watching an episode. As far as explaining your rhyme and reason for why you do the things you do, it's hard for me to feel that your attempt will be effective when you feel the need to remind people that it's just your opinion. What's more, you're trying to break down an age-old recommendation in the anime community, but yet in 24 minutes I didn't feel like you fully grasped why this recommendation exists.
I don't believe in any method of determining what you'll like without watching an episode. Synoposes are often misleading, and there's been a ton of shows that looked like they'd be garbage that I ended up loving, which is why I make a point to watch the first ep of everything. Also, you seem to have encountered a different form of the 3-ep rule than I have--I've seen it used more as a rule for every show, that you should never drop something before giving it a 3-ep chance.
Typically the 3-episode rule is just touted as a rule of thumb, but it has no validity in terms of actual episode quality. As you say, if the first episode being bad is almost always a representation of the quality of the rest of the series. This is where you have to really look at what people watch, and why they watch the things they watch. People watch anime they like, and general audiences gravitate toward certain kinds of shows. Especially in the case of S;G, it's a show that's highly popular despite having a very different kind of appeal. I would use Log Horizon as a good example, because the show's initial episodes don't really represent the series as a whole, they act as a setup. As for why it's always touted as something people should follow, I'd say the reasons are two-fold: You never know if a show might appeal to your personal tastes more beyond the first episode, and over time this idea has become very prolific to the point where it's applied globally. I would argue that the very idea of treating a first episode as a hook to draw viewers strengthens the need for rules such as this not only to determine whether you'll like a series, but to determine whether you'll dislike a series. As for misleading synopses and such, I'm not sure I've ever encountered a scenario in 10 years where I dismissed a show, and then tried it out and changed my mind. Of course, I don't just read the synopsis alone and make my judgements off of that alone, as I said before. To each their own though.
The 3-episode rule isn't for everyone, it's more for people who, as Digibro's apparent reason for making the video, can't tell if a show's good in the first episode. It's also for those less who feel less inclined to watch shows, as they may just drop a show out of spite for their recommender or not paying attention while watching. Those who use the 3-episode rule to justify their show means it won't be that good most of the time, but if you use the 3-episode rule to cater to the person you're trying to get to watch the show gives you that extra chance they wont miss out
Misaka Mikoto Yeah, but it was about going back in time to the past and then returning to the future. Of course it's gonna be somewhat predictable. The ending wasn't really the point of the show. There WAS a climax, too. The protagonist and the antagonist met and had a conflict of wits. What would you have done differently?
lordkhan It didn't get shit. I could've gone for a little less gay friends coming together and being superheroes. I was hoping it was Kenya. I think you guys are just bitter because the gay friend ends up marrying Hinazuki.
I find JoJo 2012 had a weak beginning because I find Phantom Blood to be lacking overall but gets good by Battle Tendency. I don't know if I consider Phantom Blood bad per se but I didn't see it as something I wanted to stick around with had my friend not asked me to watch the first 10 episodes and then decide. I also didn't dislike the first episode of Black Butler but I found it to be so-so and wouldn't have stuck with it had I not been in for Book of Circus since the start (skipping fillers in s1 and all of s2 obv).
I never really cared for part 1 at all. It's just that the characters feel flat and with this series in particular I feel that the characters help the story. The other parts a lot more enjoyable, but the other parts also fleshed out their characters better.
The problem with PB is that it is based on very early writings in a manga that was basically just a rip off of Fist of the North Star, with out adding things to the anime the characters would have still felt kinda bland compared to other anime around the same time of its release. I think Battle Tendency is really when JoJo found its own style of doing things that made it different and special enough for people to get interested in the anime over others despite its competition having more fleshed out characters and story.
each JJBA Part really does improve what Araki missed out on previous parts, SBR era is basically Araki using all his years of experience and current story to completely fix all his previous mistakes and make a more gritty story
For me it took about 3 episodes for me to get into Soul Eater and Madoka Magica and I greatly love both of them now. They're both in my top 10 favorite anime.
Stein's gate was kind of meh up until episode 4 when it started getting good. at episode 12, it turned AMAZING. Now it's possibly my favorite anime of all time.
I've had the same standpoint for years and you're the first person who was actually agree with me that I've come across. I'm so glad you have finally put it into such elegant words.
+Digibro Sarcasm? If this was intended I understand where you are trying to take this topic. Guess I'll have to wait for the other two parts. Good video as ever though.
Breaking down what the first episode of Steins ; Gate did brilliantly helps you see how even a strange and at first off putting episode can wink at the greatness it's about to show you. He used Steins ; Gate to scale down his ideas on how to spot a good show from just the first episode. For example, he discribed the angles and the music used in the start of the episode and told his audience how he had already figured out the theme and style the show will likely take from these elements, this along with many other small variables that can be missed with an untrained eye gave him a good impression of the show. We as the audience must use the methods he used when we first inspect a show and hopefully we can understand where the story will go and if we would like the direction it's heading.
Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Amazing, top tier anime, slow and almost tedious first dozen episodes. Seriously, try it if you haven't already. this anime will blow your mind at how it goes from a 2 to an 11 after the character set-up. it's unique, emotional at exactly the right times, and a wonderful example of why you shouldn't dump any art after just one episode or chapter.
this doesn't count though, the manga had those shit daily life episodes paced throughout the manga instead of all at once. But i wouldn't blame someone for dropping reborn there those were some of the shittiest episodes of anime ive ever watched
So neat. I never understood why people thought the first S;G episodes are boring, I absolutely loved them from the first sight. When I rewatch these series, I always start from the first ep(though usually don't), because the atmospheare is strong and the jokes are hilarious.
I do not mind complicated first episodes. I do not mind being thrown for a loop and being left confused. I like being left with a million questions and no answers after a first episodem, well, as long as I care for finding said answers. But I do not have the patience for: "It's going to become good/get better later." - I need it to be good now.
I loved the first part of steins;gate and was excited to see where the story would go back when i was binging it. i literally had a "just one more episode" moment that led me to finish it in one sitting and i finished it at like 6 am. It genuinely pissed me off how my 9 and 11 year old brothers said it was boring and dropped it just before the real shit was about to happen.
I don't care what others say Digi, your review of the first episode was superb and I've really learned allot from it. That's really so much info to take in from just 1 episode and the best part is that this video isn't even finished yet, there is another part of it~! I wonder what the other part will be about, I can only guess. You've already given out so much information about what to look at in an Anime and how your view of it already is. You really did a great job, I would subscribe to you again over this video if it were possible, haha~
Biba was a little underdeveloped but at least consistent as a character. Mumei went from being a badass in ep 1, knocking fucking Ikoma out of his bullshit, and then descended into retardedness the entire rest of the anime. She has 1 episode to so-called reclaim herself (i.e. ep 12) but really Ikoma's the one who'll salvage her from the depths of garbage since her pathetic self-ceneteredness makes her unbelieveably naive and unsophisticated, despite being the total badass in ep 1. I think it would've been fine if she descended into darkness to about halfway, picked her shit up, fought against Biba, and then later got subjugated and turned into a super shit which would've elicited at least some form of sympathy from me; but it took until ep 11 for her to turn around and realize she was being used like a dumbass. So ultimately I just can't respect her, I mean, just compare to fucking Ayame, I'd tap that shit any day over crybaby Mumei, and she's not even a main character. The show started out 8.4 on MAL then crashed to 8.0, it's pretty disappointing considering the high hopes I had from salty Ikoma's declaration that'd he'd send the whole crew to hell with regrets about being basic bitches. The one save and grace is the music since I'm into that Aimer/Sawano shit and am a Gundam UC fan but if you weren't, then there's not much left. Pray for an op ep 12.
i'm so glad that you agree that the beginning of steins gate is as good as it is. i found myself enjoying a lot of the scenes you pointed out but not really knowing why or really giving a second thought about it. but when you look at the raw details it becomes very apparent of how well everything was put together, i never would have noticed why i loved the ending the scene with metal oopa so much if you hadn't pointed it out.
I think its fairly obvious why you cant judge an anime (or any show) by one episode alone. Some shows require progression and for the viewer to get familiar with the cast. Similarly, if an anime is 20 episodes long and you only watch one episode, you are judging an anime based off 1/20th of its overall content. Just like someone who has watched the whole anime is has a more valid opinion than someone who has only seen half of it, someone who has watched say 3 episodes has a more valid opinion than someone who has only watched one episode.
I wouldn't say "more valid". More informed is a better way to put it. I think if one is very familiar with anime, it's easier to judge based off less information. So one could say, within the first episode "this show isn't for me" or "this show isn't worth my time". That's not to say that such a person will be correct 100% of the time but if it works even 90% of the time, that'd be good enough for most such people. After all, the idea of judging an anime without having watched all of it is to save time - so one doesn't spend an hour sitting through a show which bores them when they could have stopped after twenty minutes and tried something else.
+Cloud [2512] wouldn't you say that a more informed opinion is more valid than one that is less informed? I mean of course you can sometimes judge if it's your type of anime BUT we aren't always right in saying "it's not my type of anime. We can often times be wrong and be surprised by something new.
+Jerry Reyes Sure, in as far as anyone's opinion is ever "valid" on anything, I guess. I'd consider myself as likely to listen to someone tell me why the first ten minutes of a show didn't grab them as someone else telling me why, over the course of 200 episodes, that show made them cry, all other things being equal. At least in my experience, sticking with a show I've decided I don't like has 99% resulted in me just getting further irritated and frustrated with the show. A show that can turn me around but doesn't do so within the first few episodes is a real rarity. Now whether that's influenced by my first impression is up for debate but given how unlikely I am to forgive a major misstep in a show I previously enjoyed - signs point to not really.
+Cloud [2512] well "valid" doesn't have to mean objectively true. It can simply mean to be justified. Someone who knows more is inevitably going to be more justified in their belief that the anime is good or bad. Similarly, someone who has finished a show and calls it a good anime is much more justified than someone who judged the entirety of the show in just a few episodes. Now I am not saying that you can't have an opinion without watching it all, but I do think that making your decision on only one episode is a bit close minded. Three to five episodes would be a good balance. You may want to say that you are rarely wrong in judging based off of the first episode. Well that would seem to me to be a bit arrogant(no offense to you). Why? Because you are assuming that you are infallible in your judgment of the series. That also means that if you think something is not your cup of tea, then you will dismiss the show simply because it is not what you are expecting or hoping for. If we are genuinely looking for good anime, then we should be open to what an anime can offer despite our initial reactions or our biases. Because of this, I like the 3 episode rule or 5 episode rule. You don't spend too much of your time on something that might not be good at all, but you also give the anime the chance to prove itself.
The quality of the animation is usually at it's peak during the first episode. So if anything the show will be going downhill from there in some regards. The only anime I was hesitant over the first episode and then enjoyed was The Tatami Galaxy. Which is understandable given the uniqueness of the animation. One episode is hard to judge an entire series off of but if you don't like the feel of it, chances are that won't change. I think if you can verbally articulate what you didn't like in the first episode you can have a good guess at the rest of the show. If someone goes onto say they think the entire anime is bad after only the first episode though, that person is an idiot. You can't give a critical analysis from one episode, the best you can say is, "personally I didn't like it." Which is a good enough reason.
see, if this is true, then I'm going to hate Code Geass. I watched the first episode & was bored to tears. It was generic, oddly paced, uninterestingly-unspecific about literally any of the plot, then deus ex machina'd the MC into mary-sue status.
+Digibro everything about it felt like it had be done twenty time before... again, it was only the first episode, but Japan taken over by some empire, kids lose their parents one decides he's Eren Jaeger, then he becomes Sora from No Game No Life, cut to high school, writers convenience makes him get caught between the empire & "terrorists" because of mech battle, girl he knows nothing about dies, he cries for a second, becomes Mary-Sue because she's actually not dead, end episode. It was tropes upon bad writing upon bad pacing upon slightly above average animation...
lol I can't say I find Lelouche that cliche at all. I don't think his personality is much like Sora (he's way more self-serious) nor is he much like Erin in that his opponents aren't a force of nature. Idk if it's worth mentioning that Geass came out way before either of those shows anyways. I mean, if you describe anything as flippantly as this then it's gonna sound bad, but I think there's a lot more going on in that episode than you're giving it credit for, in terms of setting up a pretty interesting scenario.
great in-depth analysis! it's super refreshing to see this kind of thought put into reviewing the technical work that goes into making an effective audio/visual experience.
he'd still probably dislike it, and honestly whether someone likes it or not I don't think it's quality has gotten any better or worse. For me it has the same strengths and weaknesses it had from episide 1 to now.
I found it to be a great concept, but the payoff was anticlimactic and by the time they got to the actual story I was so bored I just couldn't care anymore.
Wait, wait... He dislikes Re:Zero? That's the best god damn anime I've watched in several years. And, ironically considering this video, had a good first episode. Seriously, how the fuck could he like Steins;gate but not Re:Zero?
Granddaddy Gundam Dude, even GlassReflection drew parallels to Steins;Gate in his video about Re:Zero - for good reason, they're both the same core concept as time traveling (no, I'm not interested in yours or anyone elses' theories on Subaru's power and how it "actually" works) stories. Is the method different? Is the setting/world different? Obviously. However, at their core, both use time travel/"do-overs" as plot mechanics. The fact that they work differently is of no consequence. Nor do they have to be "the same" (by the way, I also didn't say that) to be compared and contrasted. As for execution, that's merely your subjective opinion. Frankly, I find Steins;Gate to be an excellent series that, however, is still overhyped as hell. I enjoyed it, but it gets the same smug nonsense about just how amazing it is like, say, Inception did. Meanwhile, with Re:Zero, I'm enjoying each and every episode with anticipation (the week-to-week wait is agonizing). That doesn't mean it's better than Steins;Gate, but if given the choice I would rather watch Re:Zero because I love so many of the characters, the writing, and the story so far. (Also, if all this is one long paragraph with no formatting, RUclips fucked up again. Sorry. I can't fix it.)
Yes, exactly it's my favorite anime, but still the first episode doesn't look like a Thriller or any intense plot. It more looks like a casual doctor story and has none real hype moment or eyecatcher, basically it looks to serious and mature, but doesn't present us much content. Still it's my favorite anime and i feel the same like you, that the side stories and side characters caught me in all the episodes and i lost many tears for this well done slice of life.
At first i thought was going to be a medical drama or something, yet i still found it very interesting, also, I was suspicious of the kid, so i kept watching, but i see your point.
I personally picked up the three episode test from reading Bakuman. (If anyone hasn't read it, it's a slice-of-life about an artist and a writer trying to become mangaka together. Written by the Death Note team, highly recommend reading it, contains a lot of interesting stuff about manga creation.) When submitting a series to a magazine, the mangaka submit the first three chapters, and the story is picked up or dropped based those three chapters. Since most anime are based on manga, and the first three episodes often correspond to the first three chapters, by watching those three episodes you get the complete sales pitch the original creator was selling. Really enjoyed this video, had a lot of interesting points. I generally only drop a series on the first episode if it's obviously not to my taste. I like this analysis.
+Illyon / Aclean He basically says he likes the scene because Okabe moves around to show different parts of a room and it makes a reference to 1984. The scene itself is devoid of character, apart from Okabe being a conspiracy theorist, which has already been established and is pretty shallow anyway. Digibro just has this thing of pretending that every single thing is good in stuff he likes. If this exact same scene was in Erased, which he hated, he would be saying how this entire scene is boring and relying on kinda cool but kinda lazy directing.
the characters of Mayuri and Itaru are also further defined without any specific dialogue as description, making it indirect instead which is always a good thing. This whole "you on the other side of the screen" thing evolves a bit. It isn't over in a single humorous moment. The scene is mostly exposition, that is correct and I won't deny it. But are you saying that it isn't well-done exposition?
Erased doesn't have any moe characters, other than children. Not so surprising why Digi prefers this one. I find it hilarious that he said this show has amazing character design when every girl character is just another moe design. That goes for Ruka too. We have the big boobed childish one, the shy one who has a crush for the main char (also trap), the silent glasses face, the sporty tomboy and the worst offender of them all: the character whose personality is literaly a maid cat girl. Just because it takes place in Akihabara and portrays moe culture, doesn't mean you should make every girl char moe, or make the male protagonists the black faces of nerds. I almost find the Big Bang theory more interesting with their characters.
+Illyon / Aclean For that I'd have to watch it again, which I sincerely do not want to do, since I still haven't gotten around to slogging through the final episodes. I don't really want to go through all my problems with the series now, since that's long and irrelevant, but I'm criticising Digi for not covering any potential problems with the episode.
What about the first episode of ,,Boku no hero Academia" AKA ,,My hero Academia", it's first episode was preety bad and made the show seem like a boring super hero show. (This changing in episode 2)
+Víctor Andrés Hernández Patiño Well yeah but it made it seem like it was a typical hero anime. I mean did you expect that All Might would say ,,Yes'' or ,,No'' at the end of episode 1?
'The worst Anime ever made' you seem to not know many anime then. If you want to see something bad: Seikon no Qwaser (despite being cringey, edgy and bad as fuck I still got to EP3 before I stopped watching that thing). But you sound just like IGN "Yeah I did not like MonMusu, I watched like 10 seconds of the first episode"
Some decent amount of time ago, I think I started to watch this video, but stopped almost immediately because the first like, word or moment you mentioned about steins;gate made me think I'd love it, and I didn't want to know anything. I quickly forgot about it and this video. Fast forward a year or two, and I'm starved for time travel content after binging the only 4 episodes of derrida who leaps through time. I literally searched the word "time" on crunchyroll and stopped at steins;gate, with the hint of a memory of hearing somewhere once that it might be a good show. I watched the entire series in the span of 24 hours, then, recalling that there was some video somewhere that went into detail about why it was good, I searched youtube and found this. One of my favorite things in the world is detailed breakdowns of stories, and what did and didn't work within them. So basically, thank you. There's a chance I would have watched steins;gate if I hadn't happened upon this video however long ago, but honestly I don't know how big that chance would have been.
The entire concept of discovering an anime that is good from episode one isn't one of the most stupid things I've heard all week, but granted it is still pretty pointless. It seems like Digibrony is really trying to hammer the, "I own opinions, I'm trying to teach you how "I" think so you can be like "me." thing really hard in this video, which is primarily the reason why I unsubscribed all those years ago, but it looks like with a change of the channel name and a few more dabs of drug and alcohol abuse along with a smidgen of a God complex, it seems we have another shining example of why Digibrony doesn't think from a conventional, reliable standpoint simply because he wants to stand out and feel "original." If this logic were even remotely true ankles like Sword Art Online must be one of the crowning achievements of anime, which is an absolute fucking travesty by the way and that Fate/Zero Is generally terrible from its exposition dump of a first episode.
TL;DR I unsubscribed from Digibro a few years back because he constantly tried to force his views on his audience and I'm not surprised he's stayed the exact same way.
I too watched and loved Steins;Gate! I saw the thumbnail of a new episode and I was curios and clicked to read the synopsis. Watched the first episode and I was hooked! I've always loved stories revolving around the topic of time/ time travel (sci-fi genre overall) and also weird stories xD
I think a good anime has good characters that people can relate and empathize with. Even if anime doesn’t start out good I think people should give it a chance since the show is just getting started. People have so many wonderful ideas and creativity that comes with anime and I’m so happy to see people making such beautiful works of art.
![How to Recognize a Great Anime (in just one episode) [Part 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6cc0kAQmxd0/mqdefault.jpg)
![How to Recognize a Great Anime (in just one episode) [Part 2]](/img/tr.png)
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for the Steins;Gate Episode 1 review.
xD lol
yeah, i expectect something more general
ugh this is so frustrating to watch lol
I thought the same until I saw the "part one" so I'm fine with Steins Gate getting almost all the video to itself.
wtf is this
The first episode of Steins Gate had me hooked. Interesting main character, nice murder mystery from the bat, and MYSTERIOUS TIME TRAVEL. It was the 11 episodes after that had me wonder, was this going to pay off? Then by episode 13, everything got too real and blew my face off
I finished Steins; Gate recently (dropped it for no reason years ago), and I really enjoyed ep 1. Really hit in the, "Da fuck is going on?" feel.
For real!
Exactly this! Loved the first episode and then was honestly quite bored for a while...and then suddenly WHAM! It really really hit me that I was watching a complete masterpiece.
I know that things happening in the early part of anime series so I kept that in mind in the whole show (Spoiler Alert) , when daru was gonna hack to sern in ep 22 i realized the fucked up shit before okabe did and dried my eyes out for half an hour. The first episode kept me guessing nani the fuck happened. It at least deserves that rank in mal if not better than fma brotherhood. El psy congroo.
Exactly right the action only started about episode 11
People complaining that the first episode of a mystery show is “confusing” will never not be hilarious to me.
I mean there’s a difference between finding the mystery itself confusing, which fair enough is the point. And finding the show itself hard to follow and not being able to keep attention on it because of that.
@@kuraihikari5785 Yet as you watch the show it all still becomes clear. So basically, you'd need to have more patience and a slightly higher attention span than that of a goldfish.
It's the thirst-thirstiest time of the year
@@davefred look man, some mystery is just done bad
Honestly if i am trying to find some myself without the help of others i usually just do the 3 episode rule but if others recommend i usually watch through the whole thing
What I've noticed these days is that a lot of anime that get popular go full blast during the first few episodes trying to impress its audience, and then gets less interesting as the story goes.
I think what really matters is authenticity. Authenticity of character/s, art style, animation would usually tell you if an anime will be able to hold it's candle all the way.
Slow burn stories can be arduous at first but can be worthwhile in the long run, especially if there are twists and turns planned to knock your socks off.
yep. That's what I noticed about Kabaneri. Goddamn those first episodes were amazing. The rest was lukewarm.
Andrea I think "The Tortoise and The Hare" applies here. Slow and steady wins the race. Trying to rush ahead will likely leave you worn out too soon.
Storytelling can be like gardening. You have to cultivate things from a tiny seedling so they can gradually grow into a great tree.
Of course, not everyone has that sort of patience sadly.
matt0044 Can you recommend me some animes that were pretty good story-wise? They don't have to be as good as S;G but man I loved S;G.
Andrea For a slow build but a good enough start, try LBX: Little Battlers Experience AKA Danball Senki for one.
Other I'm not sure off the top of my head.
The problem with people is that they're plot addicts. To them, if the plot isn't given to them and spoonfed to them immediately, they get bored and wonder why they are watching. If "things are not happening", then they complain that "nothing is happening" and become bored. It's a part of our fast cut, instant gratification culture that was promoted by Hollywood in the 80s.
What pulled me into Steins;Gate personally was how well directed the first episode was and how meaningful every camera angle was. This is especially weird considering this was originally a visual novel where everything is so static. But the camera works to create such an emphasis on how exceptionally strange the characters and what is going on around them is.
The problem is that most people don't have artistic minds and have been trained by most media culture (both in America and in Japan) to want plot to be fed to them more than anything else. This is in the face of history, where many of the greatest movies have actually been plotless, such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Vertigo, Lost in Translation, Days of Heaven, etc.
by instant gratification do you mean movies because those are meant to covey a storyline within the time of the movie
shows on the other hand most of them barely have a real plot its just take these characters and throw them into different situation
Instant gratification has more to do with writing. It's where you immediately give the viewer something that appeals to their desire to have fast paced events happen immediately, and are usually events completely and totally spelled out to the viewer.
Something that does not use instant gratification are a lot of old Hitchcock movies, you'll notice they beginnings take their time, are very subtle, and involve good build up, much like Steins;Gate (except Steins;Gate does this over a few episodes). Both don't use instant gratification, but are willing to build up their characters as well as their events. Neither of them spoonfeed you information or instant action and instead create very interesting character scenarios as well as the beginning threads of a plot (assuming there is a plot).
Granted, this formula doesn't always work. A person can use this way of doing things, but if they're bad at it, it could end up REALLY feeling slow. But in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, they can spend entire episodes with no continuous plot, but still create interesting themes, character studies, so on and so forth.
i was asking because i had no idea what films and shows you were referring too
imo (yeah i know it doesnt count for much) as far as films go we have alot of examples of both side i think its less of a case of being conditioned to want it and more of a case that its easier to swallow so to speak because the ease of understanding it more can join in quicker and through that more immediately enjoy it
i also dont believe this is a bad thing either as i think there is a place for media of many types
also i believe that we would be having this conversation the other way around if they just made slower pieces with more build up
i really believe everything has its own place
and thanks for the clarification glad to know a bit more of where you were coming from
I want the genre fiction meme to just end
Other times when the first episode of an anime fails to show a plot but tries to hint it will suddenly become deep it will generally remain crap
Something I love that this guy does is that (most of the time) he titles the clips he's displaying. By doing this I've racked up easily 15 shows to watch over the break. Thanks, man.
Toastie GG but do you know what anime the one titled Whatever is? I just cant seem to find it, if it is titled whatever than thats gonna be an issue
Same. It annoys me when reviewers don't provide titles when they show clips
@@freshlymemed5680 "Whatever" is actually the asterisk wars and he called it whatever bc he knows it's not worth your time to watch it. Digibro did make a video series on it called "the asterisk wars suck" that is certainly worth watching though.
Freshly Memed You probably already know this by now but the show is the Asterisk War and Digi titled it whatever because he hates it
More like Why is Steins gate a good anime
I wish
*I am mad scientist!*
SUPAH KUUR
sunavabich
@@sneedsfeedseed9905 Am smart.
Mad scientist so cool
Me
The seeker of chaos
how to hide a steins gate review as a how to find anime video
its a part 1 of a 3 part series.
well it worked. I think I'm gonna give this another try. I initially dropped this midway through the first episode I think. 14 year old me had the attention span of a goldfish
@@destinyblade1167 want a good time travel story watch netflix's DARK way better than this trash anime
@Satanho well if you like steins gate that makes sense cause none of the characters on that act like normal humans. Only good part of the show was when the main character had a break down. Yes I do not like Stein's gate.
@Satanho naw i watch a ton of anime. But ig i should say I cant watch too anime anime. FLCL is one I can or gurren laggan
So a good anime 1st episode
1. Introduces characters
2. Gives a goal for the characters to follow
3. Has oh shit or wtf moment
4. Develops the midset required for the series
5. NEVER add oversexualized “tsundere”
(its kind of overused)
@@standingpenguin7544 😂
Re zero has it, Steins Gate has it, FMAB too, Code Geass too, Made in Abyss too
Not with fmab is like poor start and ending is like what
@@standingpenguin7544 Eh, I ain't complaining
TL;DR: So basically you just need to understand how animation and storytelling works and not be a brainless consumer.
Ye.
Pretty Much
Sometimes I like being a brainless consumer. Switching off my brain might allow me to enjoy a series more, which in turn enables a wider range of anime for me to watch. But I guess that's because I have nothing better to do :l
this is exactly how i lived sao. i actually thought it was a pretty good show for a while, that is, after i heard why its terrible and re-watched it without binging the majority of it in 1 night
***** Unless you're a child, you're not supposed to take sayings literally. Also I was never saying anything about criticism and its importance. Just making a comment about my own experience as a consumer.
Basically your entire comment is just simply pointless. Like writing an essay and then have the teacher tell you that you completely missed the point.
Steins;Gate's first episode is truly a masterpiece to behold...
Even after finnishing Steins;Gate 0, it always loops back at the very first episode
Even the title is a big foreshadowing...
"Prologue of the beginning and end"
So it's where it all begins, at the same time it's where it all ends
Im watching this right after watching the anime and holy shit i just realized what that 15 minutes earlier was
I think the Three episode test also exists to give an anime with a good first episode a chance to fuck it up.
Also, Digi, not everyone is good at viewing things they like with a strong critical eye. Most people can only carry their critical eyes to the second viewing.
Bear in mind also, that even most people who have a strong critical eye like yours, aren't as steeped in the media as you. I could never be an anime critic as you are, simply for having not studied anime as in depth as you. You often know the credits of an anime before you've even read them. I might guess that "so in so has the same voice actor as this anime character, or this pony." That is to say even most who are able to think and ponder shows as deeply as you will probably never have your level of expertise... But i dunno. I've gained more expertise watching your vids than I have with all the anime I've watched... then again If I hadn't watched the anime I'd watched, I wouldn't be able to contextualize your expertise in a manner that allowed me to absorb some of it. But now I'm just rambling.
Gel bananas, time loops.... Oh Good GOD! This show's paying homage to HOMESTUCK!!!
Valrath823 I don't think any show TRIES to get bad, but sometimes it just happens.
From my experience, critical eyes are often taught, not learned. The reason you gain expertise from watching Digibro is because he lays out what the critical tools are and how to use them.
In the same vein, if you know anyone who takes a college level film studies class, they'll often indicate that they can't enjoy movies in the same way anymore, thanks to the class having shown them how to evaluate all the aspects of a medium.
This is also why some people can't shut off their brain and enjoy a 'bad' production. At some point they're brains just automatically pick up "hey, that voice acting is flat" or "this angle doesn't make any sense" and et cetera.
funny thing its the opposite for me. anime that have good beginnings tend to end up being bad. while animes with slow beginnings or boring tend to get better in the long run
Steins;Gate's first episode is my favorite single episode of any anime, ever. Just rewatch it after finishing the series. Trust me. It's quite literally perfect.
JJShwa EPISODE 22 cough cough
Steins;Gate 0 Episode 21 :P
Steins;Gate is good but it won't fit everyone's preference. I'm not into mystery as I can get pretty bored, but I respect the pieces of media especially if they're good (like steins;gate)
No one knew the first episode was so perfect until it was over though. I rewatched it a few episodes before I finished the series and again when I finished the series. 10/10
This video is kinda lame.
But it's only the first episode, so it still has a chance to get good!
I bet you think you're funny.
So did the 35 people who upvoted his comment.
This exactly, we're giving the anime a chance. Not every anime can strike a chord on the watcher in one episode.
ppyporpeem Well, every show DIgi has found to be great has done just that, and he's seen plenty of anime. So, um, why not? Not every show *does* strike a chord in one episode, but those shows aren' great so I don't see the issue here.
ppyporpeem I bet you think lewmonuva's funny.
I didn't like steins;gate and fullmetal alchemist at the start but they're one of my favorites now
I agree, the first episode of fullmetal alchemist seemed so boring to me. It was the most cliche thing, a shonen protagonist overpowering the seemingly unbeatable desert city mayor. And then it picked the fuck up.
Yeah I meant brotherhood
I personally love the beginning of Steinsgate because it's masterful in developing and fleshing out all the individual characters, getting us to care for them more and more before we get to the part that completely fucks with your emotions. It's brilliant, the opening everytime I watched it and all the innuendos (hints) they left before that moment you could tell that shit was going to go down.
FMA Brotherhood's opening two episodes are freaking disgrace to such a great anime and it's why everytime I try to get my friends into it, they can't because they never get past those two episodes. I'm glad I watched it with my eldest brother because he warned me and told me to stick with it because he believed I was going to love it. Both of these animes are in my top 3.
EXACT SAME lol
Kenner Lyjo Morala no way. The first episode of fmab was brilliant not Only for explain the alchemy showing it uses but for connect things that Will happen later in the beggining showing that everything was planned since the first episode.
I could listen to this guy talk for hours.....
he has a vlog channel where you can do just that
Tahts why you go too his digi after dark channel and listen too all his rants LOL
He also made a playlist with every video he's ever been in on youtube. It's like 1400+ videos long.
saaaaame
I already listen to him talk for hours lol
I've found the best animes are often slow-burns, but that does not mean the earlier episodes are "bad." Animes are often written in a way that's closer to a novel than a western tv series. Would you say the early chapters of a book are "slow" or "boring" because they focus on establishing the setting and characters, as well as laying breadcrumbs for what will happen later? If the answer is "yes", then it's safe to assume you aren't an avid reader.
The first 11 episodes of Steins;Gate are actually a master class in how to pile many layers onto your story. Without them, episodes 12-24 could not have been the absolute mindfuck that they are.
this fellow human gets it
I finally found someone in the newest first section that has a brain :D
Aka most anime don’t understand their medium.
agreed you have to stack your domino's before your topel them
i really loved code geass but the first 5 episodes were hard to watch lol
Man, I've never watched an anime better than Steins;Gate and I think that it doesn't get the attention it deserves. I see people talking about their fave animes and most of them doesn't even count Steins;Gate in their top 5.
It's just really sad... cuz I have such a big respect and love for it.
it's on my list tied with Naruto at first place
@@loveinlatin oh my god
@Kazuto Kirigaya BROOOOOO
I place it at best non shounen
Leaving nothing at best shounen
It's pretty dope, to be honest, famalam.
I disagree with your stance. Firstly, it depends on what you look for in anime, is it the theme? The story? The characters? Speaking of narrative, certain anime can be taken as long-form narrative and shouldn't be judged based on a single episode merit. Shows that are based on novels and visual novels, for example. It's like watching a movie and judging it based on the first 5 minutes. Slice-of-life and comedic shows do tend to be more episodic and their first episodes can be more representative of the general quality of humor.
That being said, there are shows that deliberately go out to trick the audience by pretending to be something they're not. Haruhi, Madoka, Higurashi all have beginning episodes that are very different from what they eventually turn into. If you're able to catch on to the hints and references in the beginning, fine. But if you aren't able to, you really do need to watch ahead to make sense of everything that happened before hand.
Also, are we talking about personal taste? Or are we talking about some form of objective quality standard here? Those are two very different concepts. Regarding the latter, shows should never be reviewed without having seen the entire thing.
The notion that it's like judging a film on the first 5 minutes is very misguided. There's a huge difference between 5 minutes and 22 minutes. It's not really a matter of percentage, it's a matter of how much time you spend getting to see what the nature of the work is. Haruhi, Madoka, and Higurashi all have great first episodes that give lots of information about what the show is going to be.
I'd like to add to Digibro that an Anime gets a lot more done in the first 22 minutes than a movie does in 5. In 22 minutes you've got the main cast, the setup, the premise, the art and writing style. In 5 minutes a movie has barely started the prologue and you know basically nothing about the rest of it.
And like he said in the video, a good show never has a bad start. If you don't like a show after seeing 1 episode there's a good chance you won't like it in general. I speak from experience when I say that shows that were bad all the way through almost always started with a bad experience of the first episode, and that all shows I've watched that I consider good all had a good first episode.
Shows like for example Kiznaiver (to pick something recent), which starts off slowly and a lot less intense than the rest of the series, still has a pretty good first episode. In that episode we get introduced to the cast, setting etcetera. If one doesn't seem to like the show after watching the first, they probably won't like the second and third of it either.
I've yet to experience a show that went from bad to good after 3+ episodes.
i only say hunterxhunter
the first episodes are boring as hell
It really depends on how you define bad or good. If you're one who judges the quality of a show based on character arcs and plot, as opposed to themes, setting or mood, an anime with a macro-narrative that spans the entire season can only be judged based on its entirety (or more than just the first episode). Believe me, I've had to struggle to force my friends to go though the first couple of episodes of Shin Sekai Yori before they started to agree that the show was heading anywhere, only to have them applaud the ending's twist. Perhaps they're not as patient or perceptive, but for them, I always suggest watching more than a couple of episodes to get a good grasp of the story progression. Especially when the first couple of episodes are all episodic like Psycho-Pass.
Maybe you found the 1st episodes of those shows great but the point the user is trying to make is that they don't reflect the true nature of the show. If people followed your logic then you'd have people dropping Madoka Magica if they don't like MahouShoujo anime. I could give you more examples of shows that started off weaker or don't reveal their true nature in their first episode. You have shows like Akame ga Kill, Clannad or Shiki that evolve into something totally different the more you watch. This isn't only limited to anime. There are manga that get A LOT better with time. The two greatest examples are Tokyo Ghoul, which starts off really weak (I noticed that you've dropped it) but becomes godlike after around 50 chapters and OnanieMasterKurosawa that seems like a sick ecchi femdom manga at first but suddenly turns into something very deep and complex. To be completely honest I think you can't even have an opinion of most shows unless you watch them whole (except for long running shonen). You can never 100% accurately predict how a show is going to turn out and there is always the possibility of your missing out on something great. The only person you are harming with such a stance is yourself because you are limitting yourself to shows with stronger starts and reject those that progressively get better.
16:00 when you realize you've listened to 15 solid minutes of an exceptional anime's merits and you've only gotten up to the opening credits. I was hooked from the start man- your analysis is not only impressive, but also incredibly captivating. Correction: analyses xP I'm watching all your videos now before I start any new anime. My deepest gratitude for the divine guidance you've bestowed on this planet. It's greatly appreciated.
I use the "three episode test" if I'm trying to get someone who doesn't watch anime to watch some anime. It works a fair amount where I am pretty sure just one episode would fail.
Steins;Gate is just great from beginning to end. It just starts out confusing. But confusing isn't bad per se. It's Steins;Gate. It's time loops galore. We start in the middle of one. Of course it will be confusing. But Steins;Gate does it with grace.
I have fallen in love with your voice after watching only one of your videos. You are truly amazing at giving overviews and helping to give tips, while also showing your own personal interests without appearing completely biased. I'm so glad I found that video in between all the many recommendations for anime openings and whatnot.
Huh? Steins gate gets better after episode one? I thought episode one was brilliant though!
Or rather I'm confused at the general public view of that, woops
See, I thought the same thing, but unlike a lot of people, this made me extremely disappointed with it, as I felt it went way downhill after a few episodes.
There are people who love science fiction but are repulsed by moe otaku culture. Said people would absolutely cream their pants over the second half of Steins;Gate, but be so utterly turned off by the first half that they never make it to the meat of the story.
Oh, I see, thanks for your info guys :)
+Savashri This guy gets it!!! I thought the first 8 episodes were boring and annoying but after that it was amazing. The same can be said with Shiki.
I almost fell asleep during the first episode of Stein Gate. But as I continued watching I loved the anime.
exact same experience. For some reason also I had a very sleepy panic attack while watching it and it made me stop watching it for a couple days.
lol same tbh if he likes the first episode of stein gate its his own opinion just like ours opps #srynotsry
I think I was the opposite... I was into for the first few and slowly lost interest... I mean I finished it and didn't mind it, but it was hard to watch. I am still not sure why... I loved the characters but something about it was hard to watch, normally I can binge a ton of episodes at a time but I could only watch a few in one sitting.
I am not surprise. The show forgets to engage the viewer in what it is trying to represent. It makes the view confused in what to think and not engaged in the world. Heck you are barely engaged in the characters at least it try's to do.
SAK556 I can see why. Steins;Gate gets insanely boring at some points.
what makes a great anime? an anime that isnt focused about oversexualized characters everywhere with bouncing boobs nad cringey vocabulary from the girls. those features are just there to attract viewers and honestly ruin the anime so much
"those features are just there to attract viewers"
...Like every single piece of entertainment in existence...
+Buck Wade 😂
if you defecate in the middle of a classroom of course you'd get attention
Roy • I don't even know why people make those kinds of characters. Who actually likes them other than creepy ass weaboos? It's unrealistic, completely not needed, necessary, or appropriate!
Steins Gate does all of that :p
I think you explained your reason well: You already have a pretty extensive knowledge of directors, writers, and studios that you can use to your advantage to judge shows much more quickly and confidently than many other people. On the other hand, a reason I tend to like the 3 episode rule is both because A) I'm still reaching that level of knowledge and B) There's this part of me that wants to believe that maybe, just maybe, this will be the series where that direction/writer/whatever blossoms.
Not to mention, the fact that you had Gintama as the exception to the rule means exceptions exist - exceptions that could mean missing out on some great shows if you don't use the 3 episode rule.
Simply put, some viewers have more patience than others in fear of missing out. Some, on the other hand, feel enough good anime exists that the time taken to making sure one series or another is really not that great seems superfluous. I can see both POVs on this.
Well, I really liked the first episode of SAO back in the day. And look where that got me.
Well, he stated that the inversion of the scenario isn't true.
A show that started good can obviously always go to shit.
But it's far less common for a show that starts out bad to end up good.
Take a good premise and just fuck it right up with every episode as it goes. They could have waded in that MMORPG theme for so long and tackled a lot of cool multi-player themes. Instead they focused on the main character getting pussy and turning everything into fairies. Dropped.
+Zac (BadLore) thank god I'm not the only one who thought of that. They could of easily made SAO a long running fantasy series with with lots of suspense. That would of made deaths of characters a lot more impacting. But no, they had to rush shit. And now I can't even remember or feel bad about that one random girl dying in the first season.
Sao is Meh at best, is was decent for the first 14ep then it just idk. it didn't give the same vibe
The first episode of Haruhi Suzumiya, while bizarre, does give you a pretty good idea of the basic personalities of the characters (Yuki's cold and emotionless, Mikuru is an awkward moeblob, Kyon is snarky as fuck and has a crush on Mikuru, and Haruhi is energetic and so full of herself that she'd turn out a low-budget pile of trash short film and be obliviously proud of it) and her short film being a giant clusterfuck of sci-fi, fantasy and supernatural tropes turns out to be foreshadowing when almost everyone in said film turns out to be a clusterfuck of sci-fi and supernatural tropes in real life.
Let's not forget the three aberrations that came out in the trashy short film: the eye-bullet thing followed by camera cut, the talking cat, and Koizumi's intense magic aura. This gives the viewer a clear indication that this isn't just about random high schoolers, but that there actually is something otherworldly going on with these characters.
I agree though the first episode terribly confused me. I thought I was accidentally watching a filler, clicked on the wrong episode or accidentally skipped to season 2 at first. I was so relieved when I watched episode 2 and things seemed normal.
I just thought it was hilarious to make a first episode look like a (perfectly) bad highschool film project by EXTRA EFFORT PUT IN.
Episode 00 is not the first episode
Liam Foote
It's the first that aired as far as I know, you should watch it like that for the full experience.
I happen to agree with the steins; gate point the first episode of the show introduced me to the characters and built up the chemistry between them then the last episodes sent me through an emotional rollercoaster. This is how character development is meant to be done! How am I supposed to care about the characters if I have had barely anytime to get to know them or their relationships
I could have given you 3 minutes to sell your point to me, but i had to drop it after 1.
burnnn
As soon as I saw this comment I watched for 3 minutes and about to end the video lol.
ayy lmao get roasted Digibro
If you can pick out holes and fallacies in a persons' argument that plague the rest of their point, doesn't that make it harder to want to go through and listen to the rest of that argument knowing that it's based in those same holes and fallacies, and those incongruities (is that word) keep rearing their ugly head when they try to keep making points?
he took the first minute to hook you in, so you'll watch further. like a fucking anime.
To be fair Clannad gets starts to get interesting at the start of the second episode, HXH takes a bit longer to be interesting, Jojo 2012 ramps up after a certain mask. While hindsight shows us that good shows were good in one way or the other at the beginning, I think most people are in the right for giving shows a bit more than 1 episode.
What do you mean? The first episode of Clannad was amazing. Just watch the opening scene.
As someone just getting into Hunter x Hunter I've enjoyed the starting arc thus far. I like how the exam has a variety of challenges, and the show has been good at build up thus far where I look forward to each episode weekly. I've been trying to avoid spoilers as well as I can. All I knew about the series that hasn't happened yet is related to Gon.
HXH first episodes were amazing why everyone hates them?
Wait, Clannad gets good? When? I've watched both seasons and still haven't gotten to the good part yet.
i only watched one episode of clannad because it was boring. hxh was interesting from the start for me.
Digi, I get your perspective, but you gotta understand mate; it's simply that not many people think like you. Not to say you should stop this video series, as it is a fine display of your analytical prowess, but obviously perspective is the origin of all thought.
But here's what would be more interesting for this: watch a new ongoing anime and apply your powers of prediction there and then watch the rest. It's easy to say that Gurren Lagann or Code Geass set-up the ideas they'd be tackling in the first episode in hindsight, but to me the execution from ep. 2 in both got at the heart of what a "normal" episode looks like for both shows.
Well, the fact that no one thinks this way is kind of the point: I can teach everyone how to think this way.
It's like you went back in time and teaching primitive people how to create fire...How about teaching something actually challanging for you?Stay in present time and teach us something we don't know...We all know Steins Gate's episode 1 was great for gods sake =_=
"But here's what would be more interesting for this: watch a new ongoing anime and apply your powers of prediction there and then watch the rest. "
Watch his Asterisk War Sucks series.
".We all know Steins Gate's episode 1 was great for gods sake =_="
It's like you didn't even watch this video. A lot of people think the first episode is not great, hence "it get's better".
movelea are you serious???Even my 4 years old brother knew Asterisk War was going to be one of the most generic anime ever...
I think the three episode thing is for the less refined consumer... like me. We do our thinking after the episode, if at all. Our primary goal is to be entertained and so as long as a show is not boring, and there is nothing better to do, we will probably watch it. People like myself tend to not notice the quality of things like direction, instead focusing on action, obvious art style and occasionally music and plot (depending on the person). Many people will have certain things that will turn them off of a show but it would generally be on a more obvious level- things like a certain character, presence of object, fanservice, or preachy nonsense.
I just watched your "How to recognize a bad anime" video and am mildly disappointed that comments were disabled. It is quite obvious that you are a refined viewer so I would like to show appreciation that you don't look down on less refined viewers such as myself.
Also, I like the idea of quality of premise versus quality of everything else. As an unrefined viewer I look at the premise first. If the premise is good the show just has to avoid shooting itself in the foot to keep my attention. I can overlook a lot for a good premise. I liked what I saw of Gate, for example, despite its obvious flaws. However, if the premise does not appear within 3 episodes, or by 3 episodes I am bored, well I may as well cut my losses. Sadly enough, I have a sinking suspicion that I might be an above average viewer. That scares me... Maybe I will start paying more attention to these things, do the whole critical thinking thing.
Also, sometimes I just need to allow 3 episodes to get over the rush of a cool premise and to let myself see that a show sucks.
Also, label those spoiler alerts man.
is not so much unrefined as the fact that digi needs to watch at least one episode of every single new anime and then watches allot of old anime. while most casual viewers only start watching an anime because there was something that already interested them.
also one of the best comment in this entire comment thread. and he probably disable comment on that one because it got lots of view that never watch the first two part and made comments that did not need to be made if you have watch the first 2 parts first
+
no one is going to read this. i think an often overlooked aspect of any series is the way one looks at it. what i mean is the expectations (if theres way too much fight in your slice of life or too much jokes in a drama) and also what you get from it (if the story is one big metaphore it means nothing if the viewer doesn't understand it). some series like kuregahime and kill la kill drasticly improoved from mediocre to all time favorite like this
Many good shows just keep doing worldbuilding in first episodes, and the action itself begins later. Inexperienced viewer can perceive it as boring. So that's where three episodes rule came from.
I have the 30 episode check.
FMAB only got good after episode 18
I don't think that's a good example since we already knew it was going to be a good anime because it had good critics on the manga.
+Luiz Felipe no, i dont care about critics. school days got bad reviews -> I still love it
Mirotokiwa I didn't say that you cared about critics, also, before FMAB, there was Seiji Mizushima's version, which, even though at some point wasn't canon anymore, people knew it was a good anime.
+Luiz Felipe Well A lot of "good anime" is shit.
I've never dropped an anime.
There have been some "meh" anime that I've watched, but I'd rather finish it (unless it's like 200 episodes) than just stop it.
***** Plus I have a very broad taste in anime, so it's extremely hard to make me not like one. Even ones that I hated like Black Butler and ones that everyone hates like Sword Art Online, I finished them because why the fuck not.
why do you capitalize every word rofl
better hope to god that *hidden gem* has a good first episode then, he already said he dismisses all that dont.
I never dropped an anime because I have nothing better to do.
I dropped schoolday.... I was told it was a psycho-anime, and just learned later on why.... because there is one person getting stabbed....
I actually have never done "The Test." Ever. My belief with bad writing is this... if it's bad in the beginning, most likely it's going to stay bad. That's how we judge other forms of media, right? If the beginning is awful I'll be damned to keep watching.
Can you imagine doing that with literature? "oh Master and the Margaretta. Dropped I don't care for the description in this poor prose of the bar." And dropping it after a page.
+Julian di Jorio How do you drop something after a page? lmao. Sorry for not clarifying. For books you'd obviously have to read through some chapters, but really at a certain point if you don't like it then close the book. But when someone doesn't like a book I usually never hear, "hey, read the second one it's so much better."
Not true. In many people's eyes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer started out laughably bad, but evolved into a masterpiece later on.
+AnOverdoseOfTuturu That's what works best for stuff I've seen. A lot of stuff I've dropped just really wasn't worth my time watching. There's some shows I stall, but I don't have the patience to look through three bad episodes.
+AnOverdoseOfTuturu I usually only do this for pretty bad shows. Anything mediocre or I'm not so sure about I may keep watching, but it's got to have something I like about it.
As a writer/story analyst, something like Legend of the Galactic Heroes or Monster may start slow compared to Steins;Gate or Texhnolyze, but one episode is enough of a showcase of how good the writing is to sell me on the series.
Biggest problem I have with this video...
3:08 "For starters lets look at stein's gate"
Note the time index... 3:08 of 24:19 and note, he ONLY talks about stein's gate after that. That's 21 minutes of nothing but gushing over stein's gate.I'm not pro or against stein's gate.. but "for starters" implies he's going to cover multiple first episodes to help prove his case. He doesn't. In fact the visuals from the rest of the video come from multiple episodes, not just the first so that it also a misrepresentation. So it's not even relevant to his idea that you only need to see the first episode.
I feel he has NOT proven his case about only needing to look a the first episode.. and sadly, because of only 3 minutes on his theory and the other 21 on ONE anime alone... it feels more like a promotion piece for stein's gate than anything.
This is an ongoing series which he mentioned in the video, there will be more content where Digi tries to further assert and address his claim.
I wouldn't have a problem if he does. It just right now, seems a little thin, ya know?But if all he focuses on Stein's gate... yea that would be a problem.
Luckily he won't, Digi is going to do one on Lucky Star next so maybe you'll like that next video more. One thing for sure is that he definitely has a lot of moxy for making such a bold claim about teaching us to be able to determine the quality of an anime in one episode, like I'm skeptical about this but I'm along for the ride.
Well. I'm hoping he can prove his case. It would be worth watching but.. as it stands now? this all feels like only a set up to improve stein's gate's rep and little else.
The funny thing is, he just released the second part today so you could go check it out if you want.
my First episode test:
no's:
unrealistic pantyshot.
Female tsundere (male is atleast new).
girl falls on boys face with any bodypart.
anyoing sister.
(sick of overdone ecchi).
childhoodfriend who suddenly shows up.
mainly perverted MC.
Stereotyps.
...
...
...
pretty much stereotypes and ecchi. had too much of it.
yes factors:
realistic Characters.
awesome opening.
Breaking stereotypes/Parody.
Magic and technic mixed and explained.
dark setting.
sarcastic/ironic Humor.
Breaking fourth Wall.
Violance, verbal aggressivitiy, no censored blood and Guts.
Evil wins. Because... awesome
I feel like your fourteen. Because I was into the exact same thing when I was fourteen. Anyway fourth wall breaking isn't good because it slows down deep immersive story. It also create many canon events. Like when characters wave at the camera and walk along like nothing happened.
Lightning I am nineteen and am just sick of getting the same content in different ways, after watching most of the Mainstream animes and many little ones between them. Well, young on the Inside i guess :3
I just hate ecchi because i got to much of it XD.
Breaking fourth Wall is not like you meant, i think of it more as an easter egg.
I love eastereggs, thats just why.
Deep stories are great of course, one of the main reasons to watch an anime.
I search New things, i guess, those who can give me New ways of thinking, like a good book.
I admit, i may appear childish, but i think life is boring without the inner child :)
Dennis Bonn try watching older anime. A lot of people don't because the animation is different. Watch something like BERSERK. It is ...definitely different from most anime.
Lightning was actually on my List, move it some places up, thanks for the tip :)
Dennis Bonn ^_^
now all I want is to forget Steins;Gate and watch it again so I can feel that amazing feeling I felt when I watched it for the first time
Though it's an astounding review of the first episode of Steins Gate...it would have been great to see tips and points on how to determine "good animes based on the first episode." Still, well done
But, the tips were delivered.
Be informed about the staff and about things like cinematography. That's the point he was making. If the staff behind a project has a good filmography, than the chances are better that the series might be worth a damn. If the series has great cinematography, than the chances are higher that the project has competency in it's production.
A tip to save time over watching 2 more episodes than necessary. Watch all the other stuff that team has been involved in.
After this review, I can't figure out why you consider Ergo Proxy a bad anime
He doesn't understand the concepts, or simply dislikes the presentation and disregards the more important aspects because of that. Probably.
Digi, that video needs to happen
It didn't really appeal to him after the first few episodes, and came off as pretentious though. He has said that he doesn't really get it though, and that he'd love an in-depth analysis of it to explain to him its appeal.
1 moe robo loli can't save Digi from a serious show. You need an entire cast of them. Just loo at this show.
Borderline Insane Except for the fact that he loves GiTS SAC, which is devoid of moe
I hated HxH in the beginning, and yet its' one of my favorite shows.
I was thinking the same
yeah the first arc in hxh is just so incredibly bland and boring its by far the worst arc in it, but the 3 episode rule doesnt really apply to it since its a whole entire arc
I hear people say this a lot and I disagree completely. I feel it was meant to have a light-hearted feel to it to lower your guard for the later arcs where the show becomes unbelievably brutal. A sort of setup and payoff.
But why would you watch something if you hated it? While I agree that HxH gets vastly better as time goes on, the beginning was simple but enjoyable fun. I mean, even early on we had interesting things at play such as the enjoyable personalities of the main cast, the menace & intrigue of Hisoka, the kinda questionable morals & methods of the Hunter's Association, and a really enjoyable Exam premise. I agree that the first 3 episodes were a bit rough (I actually stopped watching for a few weeks, not by choice as much as out of lack of desire) but after I started episode 4 I marathoned right through the rest of the Hunter Exam & Zoldyck Family Arcs. There's no way I would watch something 20+ episodes (longer than a lot of anime!) if I didn't enjoy it, much less hate it. Even when it was just the beginning, I found a lot to chew on and like in it.
+Eternal_Rivals I dunno, I do't think the first episode was bad. (Though I'm glad I actually read the manga's first chapter a short time before I started the show, leaving out Kite & Gon's flashback at the start is really the only major problem I have with the show overall) It had a really upbeat and adventurous tone with some great animation that drew me in. I had heard a lot about HxH's great reputation and I was big into One Piece at the time, (tho I disliked many other long form shounen) and both its legacy & a really good first episode hooked me. The first 3 eps are definitely a bit weaker, and as I mentioned from a combination of business and laziness I didn't watch the next episode for a few weeks, but when I did I watched all of that first arc in a matter of 1-3 days hard to remember which. I can't imagine actively disliking or even hating a show, and watching that much of it.
I haven't watched much anime that I seriously dislike mostly because I'm kinda a bit too selective with which shows I watch at times but whenever I watch a show and I dislike or even "hate" I waste no time dropping it. Some good examples -
Black Bullet - I remember thinking this had a kinda cool premise and I had no real knowledge of how bad ln adaptations were getting. So I watched the first episode and...the animation felt wonky the characters and setting left no impression it felt needlessly self-important and I was just completely uninterested. I never watched the second episode.
Akame ga Kill - This show was really popular and I had heard some of the hype. I watched the first episode, and actually quite liked it. After the first 4 episodes though I had come to really despise it. The tonal shifts, generic characters, extremely "edgy" & "shocking" violence & sex the 1 dimensional (or less) villains, and just a really juvenile & stupid worldview pretending that it was a dark & gray look at morality, when it couldn't be more painfully black & white. I dropped that like a brick.
I literally thought HxH was an anime of a happy adventure for children in the first episodes. The show changes completely.
whatever (episode 1)
Damn, Digibro isn't even calling it Ass War anymore.
It was probably Davoo who did that actually. I'm pretty sure he edited this video.
I'm still waiting for the season 2 "review"
I would've said roasting, but pretty much the same if he did that anyway
Yeah yeah we know that he is secretly in love with the show and that it is his favorite show of all time. ;)
ExtremeRampage Pretty sure that's the case ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° )
Am i the only one around here that thinks the scientist from steins gate looks like shinichi from parasyte the maxim?
i dont see any similarity,may be same voice actors :/
lol, he looks like the dude from cloudy with a chance of meatballs
"scientist"
Only fools think that! He's a *mad scientist* !! It's so cool sonofabitch!!!!!
Niels Beeris both awesome animes
and both are amazing shows
Excellent points as always Digi! Personally, I've always struggled to stay committed to getting through the first few episodes of a series if the pilot episode didn't catch my interest in some way. People forget that the first episode is meant to act as a hook to get potential viewers interested, and if a show takes longer than 3 episodes to "get good", you'll have lost a significant portion of potential fans right off the bat. No amount of pestering from the remaining diehard fans about how the series gets good by the halfway point is gonna convince me to slog through the story to get to said good parts. I mean, it's fine if the show has flaws here and there, but if a good chunk of the overall story is bad or (even worse) boring, then I see no reason to force myself to keep watching.
theMoporter Starting episode, first episode, premiere, whatever you wanna call it.
(but if a good chunk of the overall story is bad or (even worse) boring, then I see no reason to force myself to keep watching.) I felt this way about death note after L died the arc about some corporate executive leading to some chase on a bridge I forced my self to get to this point but I see what your saying I will never watch the ending of death note because this one arc I've tried literally 5 times and kept falling asleep even sitting up I fell asleep sitting up why did I put myself through that cause every one said it was good and it was but post L's death I just can't minus a few episodes
Yup. That's precisely what I wanted to say. I don't think Japanese entertainment or audiences subscribe to the idea of pilots.
You & @theMoporter are arguing semantics to a ridiculous degree lol. A pilot in the Western Sense is rarely something that happens in Japan, yes, but I think it's pretty clear that the guy just is talking about regular first episods as that's kinda what this whole video's about lol. It's a pointless argument.
It's not a pointless argument if Japanese audiences don't hold the same expectations for the first episodes as the people do in the US.
I would rather watch a "How To Recognize A Bad Anime (in just one episode)" video.
We'll get there.
Yeah this makes more sense otherwise it would just be an argument about perspectives. Some shows start slow or boring and became a favorite later on (One piece took 30-50 episodes to get there). But you might tell you found potential in it right at the first episode and that will be just your perspective and others might feel differently. Exactly the same with shows that have awesome first episodes and fail to deliver same punch after 2 episodes. I still feel 3 episodes is a good measure to check if the anime interests you unless you have pointers to identify the bad ones right off the bat.
+Digibro I am going to vomit, wanna no why? Because my friends say future diary is the best anime ever and I tell them: "You guys are Fucking idiots why? Because who smack your mother over the head with a mallet and threat to kill your dad, locks you up in a Fucking attic where you were drugged and about to see your friends about to suffocate and shit and shoots one of your friends in the thigh with a cross how and did I mention she mind fucked you making you believed that you can save all your friends you killed when becoming God...Like after that you have sex with her oh did I mention she TRIED TO KILL YOU AFTER WARDS??? but noooooo you still have the will to risk your life and she kills herself and you can do anything as God but nooooo you sit in your lair acting like a bitch."
Well a few the anime I liked in that video so I didn't finish that video cause I'm sure they would have had more i liked then I didn't like!
I'm not good at analyzing anime so I'm only looking for anime that are enjoyable. It also takes me a while to really get a good feel for a show, its characters, or its premise so giving shows three episodes really helps. Also, when I give a show three episodes, I can tell if it was a show that has only a good first episode or if the other two are just as good. But, that's just me and how I watch anime.
It's okay to not understand as well when you're new. When I was new I'd watch whatever I could find, good or bad. Now I better understand through years of experience.
Okayu P I mean, I've been watching for 5+ years now but I'm the kind of person to miss things that are hinted at or things that people would notice in an artistic analysis.
I think that's fair. I missed some obvious things myself in hindsight. It's a skill you improve on the more you practice it.
I also loved Stein’s Gate from the very first episode. I have to admit it was confusing to a degree, but Okabe was just such a great character to me that I had to follow where the series led. Also, it’s set in 2010 and having watched this show for the first time less than a year ago, elements of the show felt nostalgic to me. Things like crt tvs and the general vibe of the setting gave me that feeling as I deeply cherish those times in my life
This is such a false equivalent. Everyone's argument is that you can't tell a show is going to be good or bad from the first episode alone. That's why people ridicule your "drop after 1" policy. Turning around and saying, "Oh yeah well show me any show that didn't have a great episode and then became great, except I get to decide if the first episode is bad and that the show is good enough to be called great." has nothing to do with the original point.
We could mock you by simply pointing to your last episode and saying, "Cowboy Bebop's first episode isn't great. You said yourself that the only reason it's good is because you've watched the whole show and a bunch of other media as an adult that gave you perspective on it." We could say Hunter x Hunter has a mediocre first episode because it doesn't even get to anything that makes the series great until a few episodes later. Heck we could stop filtering our view through only anime and point to shows like X Files, Star Trek TNG, or Black Mirror and point out how bad to mediocre those shows are with their first episodes.
But that's not the point. The point is that all you're saying is that you've never watched anything that wasn't great from the get go, and there's nothing good you've missed by dropping a show right away. That's fine if it's your personal policy as someone who consumes media because hey, we don't have all the time in the world to watch every terrible show in hopes it gets good. We're just pointing out that you're running a pretty huge amount of confirmation bias is all, and you sound ridiculous trying to tell people that they're "wrong" about their first impressions when you have hindsight helping out.
Is it hentai?
It is?
Good! then its a Great Anime
xD
+AnimeHomoFobisti is it with squids, children and incest
Cus those disgust me
White boys watching hentai + weebs
Lol 😂
Bruh I'm done
How to spot a good anime :
1. Good Artwork
2. Good Title
3. Good Characters
4. Good Storyline
done............
I like steins gate at the first glance, for me it's already thrilling at the beginning, too many stuff that intensely mysterious. idk, maybe I just like being curious basically.
I wish I can rewatch it again without knowing what's going to happen lol.
Digibro doesn't appear to understand the word 'statistics', and somehow thinks that the first episode can only be either "really good" or "really bad".
The 3 episode rule is a -limit- on indeterminability. If the first episode is kinda good, but you're not sold on the premise, or kinda bad, but has characters that you like, then you need more information to decide whether the series is worth sticking with. However that is itself balanced against the time that you're spending trying to decide. You reach perfect information when you've watched *all* of a series' episodes, but by that point you've lost all the time that the optimization of whether or not to watch the show was designed to use or free.
3 episodes is enough time that you'll have reached a point where you're very unlikely to swing to the other side from your current evaluation, and you're very likely to have reached a yes/no determination. The 3 episode rule has never been about, "You must watch three episodes before you can decide." It's, "You should be able to decide (with a high degree of confidence) by the end of the third episode."
Each episode reduces your margin of error. If you had a 20% margin of error after the first episode, and evaluated it at 60%, then maybe it's really good, or maybe it's not really that good; you could still go either way, and need more information to make a decision. On the other hand, if you evaluated it at 80%, then it doesn't matter even if you overestimated a lot; you're still going to like it more than dislike it. In that case, you don't need 3 episodes, since you've already made a decision you can be confident in.
Digibro seems to only evaluate things at the extreme ends, *or* has a naturally better margin of error estimate. Either way, good for him; he can make his choices based on one episode. However statistics isn't about one person, nor is it about one show.
And for a more concrete example, Netflix released statistical data on their library of shows that showed how many episodes it took for the audience to get 'hooked' - that is, how many episodes do people watch before at least 70% of the remaining audience watches the entirety of the rest of the show? The vast majority of the time, that was 2-3 episodes, with a few at 4, plus some random outliers. Pretty much giving proof to the 3 episode rule being a real phenomenon.
Now, you *might* turn that around, and have the 3 episode rule of trying to get people to watch 3 episodes be an attempt to force the 'hooked' status on someone, in that if you can get them to watch at least 3 episodes, they're more likely to keep watching after that. However I don't expect that to work terribly often. 3 episodes is descriptive and informational, not prescriptive.
And wow did that reply turn into a horrible word soup mess.
Well said! I always give a show 3 episodes whether I know I like or hate it because with how long the average series is, things can happen very quickly for short seasons. When you see a series lasting only 12 episodes, 3 is a great determiner because you can quickly grasp the pace and feel of the show, especially if you've read it via manga or light novel previously.
However if a show is 24-26 episodes long, 3 episodes is about the right amount of time to introduce new characters and concepts that were previously unknown to the audience/characters. I can't recall a single anime that I've dropped after 1 episode unless I found the series absolutely atrocious. In fact, most animes I initially hate episode 1, I give them the chance to redeem themselves.
For example, I hate Black Butler with a burning passion. I hated episode 1, but I gave it a couple more to see if maybe I was just being bashful. Turns out my initial reaction remained. I despised it, but only after seeing what kind of character and story progression it was going to provide. I rarely ever flat out hate a show. There is usually some redeeming qualities so that if someone asks I can say, "Well I personally wasn't a fan of 'x' but if you enjoy 'abc' you might like it."
Attack on Titan was a prime example of an anime that had a lot of great qualities but I don't like the show. It had great characters, an awesome premise, and honestly some of the best damn animation I've seen in years. However it was a slow, horrendously paced show that left too many questions unanswered episode to episode. I did watch the entirety of the first season, mostly because I did a group watch with it. The animation hooked me, the characters were all fairly likeable/tolerable, but I was just bored to tears.
yeah i totally agree with you. Even anime with a great 1st episode becomes boring after a few episode, it happens alot in manga. This digibro guy has no idea of what he's talking about. I always watch anime to the last episodes even if it's a mediocre i only stop watching it if i get bored and decide if i watch the rest, and i also watched many anime so i can tell that digibro has done some research on the anime he highlighted specifically but that's only a small fraction of how to recognize a great anime but really? in one episode he's gotta be a kidding.
It's a shame that many who watch his video looking for a good guideline on "how to recognize a great anime" are disappointed, it is very disappointing and very annoying. I only got to 16 minutes of his video because i know it's full of crap the rest of it, just like how to recognize a great anime in one episode i recognize his video full of crap talking about this studio that actor that director i think he needs to improve his reasoning skills because it's full of mess.
Am I the only one who really didn't like the first episode of Fairy Tail? I didn't continue watching so I don't know if it snowballed.
Death Note, my favorite anime, had a first episode that hooked me.
I can personally tell you, from watching every. Fucking. Episode. Of Fairy Tail / Fairy Tail 2014, it's pretty fucking bad, however the mood drastically changes from the first episode with a darker tone.
xertonus ur SO wrong!! FAIRY TAIL IS AWESOME!
You're a fucking idiot if that was not a sarcastic comment.
I didn't get into it the first time as well, went away and watched some other anime, after the second time I was hooked, now I'm waiting for the next season, which is meant to be sometime this year I think...? :)
Eh, I have hope for it, I like it but I get the plot drags on so so much. It's been 2 big ass seasons and I'm still not quite sure what the plot is supposed to be.
E.G: Naruto has a lot of fillers, but despite that the story is generally well paced. Fairy Tail is extremely slow even without the filler arcs
I personally like animes that do old things in new ways. Like Okami-san and her Seven Companions. Each main character represents a character from a classic fable or fairy tale, and the show is using the characters and modern-day situations to re-tell those stories in creative ways. It's a really great show, imo and it's always gonna be one of my faves, even if it did have a pretty short run time. It was handled with respect, dignity, and love to create a genuinely great show.
People tend to regard things they are invested in more highly regardless of its actual quality. Could it be possible that after watching a couple of episodes people start to have an implicit idea that "the show can't be all bad, I've watched three episodes already". The same effect is seen in people giving higher ratings to products labeled as more expensive, even if the ones being compared are identical.
Sunk cost fallacy. It's basic cognitive dissonance.
I've already spent so much time with this series, so if it was awful, I'd be an idiot for putting up with the trash for so long. But I'm not an idiot! Therefore, the series is actually good.
I swear, a disturbing proportion of One Piece's fandom is in this camp. I kept getting arm-twisted into watching it, but always wound up dropping it after a few episodes. It felt like I was just watching to make friends who loved it shut up. I hated pretty much everything about it. To be fair, I don't particularly like shounen as a genre, but if I need to skip giant portions of the series or subject myself to 100+ episodes "before it gets good," imma just go watch something else.
I use a 2-3 ep rule cause shows tend to be way more interesting during the first ep when things are new and unpredictable.
as someone who only watched a romcom before it when my friend forced me to, steins;gate very much was my first proper anime and i can't tell you how impressed i was when I watched it, I keep getting obsessed with it so much that I've decided not to rewatch it till i finish learning Japanese so i can feel that thrill when o watch it again
Did you just spoil Steins Gate for me after you told me it was pretty damn good?
I only talked about ep 1.
+Digibro I'm talking about what you said at 4:08. Do we learn that he time traveled at the end of the first episode?
Yes, it's revealed at the end of Episode 1.
that's the theme of the whole series. Which should be in the synopsys found on any anime website.
You can piece it together by the end of the ep, tho it's not stated outright.
Wow, u've got really extraordinary analysing skills and ability to pick up what looks like insignificant details to the untrained eye, and also a talent for bringing them into light! I can honestly say i was impressed by your speech mister, you've got a smart head on your shoulders ^^. My hats off to you!
I think the thing that bothers me the most about your argument is how you claim it stemmed from your followers listing 3-episode rule anime that you coincidentally liked from the first episode. Anime that are recommended to be given the 3-episode rule are typically ones that have slower beginnings, and are therefore more likely to drop the show because they find it boring. This rule is touted not because a show has a 'bad' first episode, but because a show's first episode is devoted largely to setting things up. For viewers like you or I this isn't problematic, but for many viewers this is not the kind of beginning that gets them invested into an anime or other kind of show.
While you do take the time to preface this video (a whopping three minutes in) by saying, "bearing in mind of course that this is all a matter of personal taste in the long run," I'm utterly confused by you needing 24 minutes and an additional two parts to explain your perspective. I appreciate that you feel the need to explain yourself to your followers, but you and I both recognize that this is an extremely subjective subject matter, and I'm not sure what kind of benefit you're expecting. For the majority of people, you should be able to recognize whether you will like an anime or not without even seeing a single episode of the show. My drop list is extraordinarily low because I know my own tastes, and I know how to read the signs and determine whether I'll have any interest in a show just by glancing at some background information and a synopsis, and maybe a quick glance at its preview if I'm on the fence about it.
If you want to benefit your followers and subscribers the most, these 24 extraordinarily long minutes of explanation would be best spent teaching people how to recognize anime they'll enjoy without even watching an episode. As far as explaining your rhyme and reason for why you do the things you do, it's hard for me to feel that your attempt will be effective when you feel the need to remind people that it's just your opinion. What's more, you're trying to break down an age-old recommendation in the anime community, but yet in 24 minutes I didn't feel like you fully grasped why this recommendation exists.
I don't believe in any method of determining what you'll like without watching an episode. Synoposes are often misleading, and there's been a ton of shows that looked like they'd be garbage that I ended up loving, which is why I make a point to watch the first ep of everything. Also, you seem to have encountered a different form of the 3-ep rule than I have--I've seen it used more as a rule for every show, that you should never drop something before giving it a 3-ep chance.
Typically the 3-episode rule is just touted as a rule of thumb, but it has no validity in terms of actual episode quality. As you say, if the first episode being bad is almost always a representation of the quality of the rest of the series. This is where you have to really look at what people watch, and why they watch the things they watch. People watch anime they like, and general audiences gravitate toward certain kinds of shows. Especially in the case of S;G, it's a show that's highly popular despite having a very different kind of appeal. I would use Log Horizon as a good example, because the show's initial episodes don't really represent the series as a whole, they act as a setup.
As for why it's always touted as something people should follow, I'd say the reasons are two-fold: You never know if a show might appeal to your personal tastes more beyond the first episode, and over time this idea has become very prolific to the point where it's applied globally. I would argue that the very idea of treating a first episode as a hook to draw viewers strengthens the need for rules such as this not only to determine whether you'll like a series, but to determine whether you'll dislike a series.
As for misleading synopses and such, I'm not sure I've ever encountered a scenario in 10 years where I dismissed a show, and then tried it out and changed my mind. Of course, I don't just read the synopsis alone and make my judgements off of that alone, as I said before. To each their own though.
The 3-episode rule isn't for everyone, it's more for people who, as Digibro's apparent reason for making the video, can't tell if a show's good in the first episode. It's also for those less who feel less inclined to watch shows, as they may just drop a show out of spite for their recommender or not paying attention while watching. Those who use the 3-episode rule to justify their show means it won't be that good most of the time, but if you use the 3-episode rule to cater to the person you're trying to get to watch the show gives you that extra chance they wont miss out
Don't forget Erased. All it took was ONE EPISODE.
Before it got shit?
I have to do a full series check... Unless I get bored or forget to finish it
ending was predictable and pretty much anticlimatic
Misaka Mikoto Yeah, but it was about going back in time to the past and then returning to the future. Of course it's gonna be somewhat predictable. The ending wasn't really the point of the show. There WAS a climax, too. The protagonist and the antagonist met and had a conflict of wits. What would you have done differently?
lordkhan It didn't get shit. I could've gone for a little less gay friends coming together and being superheroes. I was hoping it was Kenya.
I think you guys are just bitter because the gay friend ends up marrying Hinazuki.
Lol you have to wait awhile for Katekyo Hitman redborn
Redborn lol
when does it start to be good? 'cause i've kinda dropped it on ep 33
+Jbdragonfire 35
I only read the manga but it's only gets good in the middle then it go downhill fast
Prayories hmm i guess i'll have to watch 10-15 more episodes or something...
You're an incredibly perceptive and detail-oriented analyst. After episode one episode of your reviews, I could tell they were good. ;)
I find JoJo 2012 had a weak beginning because I find Phantom Blood to be lacking overall but gets good by Battle Tendency. I don't know if I consider Phantom Blood bad per se but I didn't see it as something I wanted to stick around with had my friend not asked me to watch the first 10 episodes and then decide. I also didn't dislike the first episode of Black Butler but I found it to be so-so and wouldn't have stuck with it had I not been in for Book of Circus since the start (skipping fillers in s1 and all of s2 obv).
While i really enjoyed phantom blood i can't say the same for stardust crusaders i still can't bring myself to finish part 1
I never really cared for part 1 at all. It's just that the characters feel flat and with this series in particular I feel that the characters help the story. The other parts a lot more enjoyable, but the other parts also fleshed out their characters better.
+Prodigy same for me, I really liked PB and BT, but SC really lacked Dio tbh and kinda dragged on tbh
The problem with PB is that it is based on very early writings in a manga that was basically just a rip off of Fist of the North Star, with out adding things to the anime the characters would have still felt kinda bland compared to other anime around the same time of its release.
I think Battle Tendency is really when JoJo found its own style of doing things that made it different and special enough for people to get interested in the anime over others despite its competition having more fleshed out characters and story.
each JJBA Part really does improve what Araki missed out on previous parts, SBR era is basically Araki using all his years of experience and current story to completely fix all his previous mistakes and make a more gritty story
For me it took about 3 episodes for me to get into Soul Eater and Madoka Magica and I greatly love both of them now. They're both in my top 10 favorite anime.
Well, Madoka is understandable with you know what going down.
Episode 1 of Madoka set up that it would be an interesting anime
Episode 3 just took that and made it many times better
***** First episodes often become a lot better with the benefit of hindsight, knowing what's going to happen soon. Its weird like that...
TheMythof Feminism Since when are wishes granted without a terrifying cost?
since DBZ 'w'
Stein's gate was kind of meh up until episode 4 when it started getting good. at episode 12, it turned AMAZING. Now it's possibly my favorite anime of all time.
Subscribed!
Cool avatar! I had that as wallpaper as my phone until I lost my phone. It was very pretty.
I'm on episode 15 and it's my second favourite anime of all time (first being Madoka Magica). 10/10
are you serious?
I think that Steins gate was good since the first episode
I've had the same standpoint for years and you're the first person who was actually agree with me that I've come across.
I'm so glad you have finally put it into such elegant words.
Digibro you have a bad habbit of going off topic. Thanks for your Steins ; Gate episode 1 review. Not what this video is suppose to be about.
It was supposed to be a Steins;Gate ep 1 review.
+Digibro Sarcasm? If this was intended I understand where you are trying to take this topic. Guess I'll have to wait for the other two parts. Good video as ever though.
Ya I agree it wasn't clear from the title it was going to be a review
Breaking down what the first episode of Steins ; Gate did brilliantly helps you see how even a strange and at first off putting episode can wink at the greatness it's about to show you. He used Steins ; Gate to scale down his ideas on how to spot a good show from just the first episode. For example, he discribed the angles and the music used in the start of the episode and told his audience how he had already figured out the theme and style the show will likely take from these elements, this along with many other small variables that can be missed with an untrained eye gave him a good impression of the show. We as the audience must use the methods he used when we first inspect a show and hopefully we can understand where the story will go and if we would like the direction it's heading.
Get rekt
The first half of this video sold me on Steins;Gate, after which I came back to watch the rest. Thank you so much, Digibro!
Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Amazing, top tier anime, slow and almost tedious first dozen episodes. Seriously, try it if you haven't already. this anime will blow your mind at how it goes from a 2 to an 11 after the character set-up. it's unique, emotional at exactly the right times, and a wonderful example of why you shouldn't dump any art after just one episode or chapter.
this doesn't count though, the manga had those shit daily life episodes paced throughout the manga instead of all at once. But i wouldn't blame someone for dropping reborn there those were some of the shittiest episodes of anime ive ever watched
So neat. I never understood why people thought the first S;G episodes are boring, I absolutely loved them from the first sight. When I rewatch these series, I always start from the first ep(though usually don't), because the atmospheare is strong and the jokes are hilarious.
?
The whole vid you only used that "Stein's Gate" and that's it?
I thought you'd use several examples
that's why he said he is making multiple parts
This is part 1.
And that said by Kira himself....
I just started. believe you me. its a good example
Storywise and execution ? Probs :DD Personally im more of a gintama fan tho :3
I do not mind complicated first episodes. I do not mind being thrown for a loop and being left confused. I like being left with a million questions and no answers after a first episodem, well, as long as I care for finding said answers. But I do not have the patience for: "It's going to become good/get better later." - I need it to be good now.
I loved the first part of steins;gate and was excited to see where the story would go back when i was binging it. i literally had a "just one more episode" moment that led me to finish it in one sitting and i finished it at like 6 am. It genuinely pissed me off how my 9 and 11 year old brothers said it was boring and dropped it just before the real shit was about to happen.
I don't care what others say Digi, your review of the first episode was superb and I've really learned allot from it. That's really so much info to take in from just 1 episode and the best part is that this video isn't even finished yet, there is another part of it~!
I wonder what the other part will be about, I can only guess. You've already given out so much information about what to look at in an Anime and how your view of it already is.
You really did a great job, I would subscribe to you again over this video if it were possible, haha~
aesterisk war labeled "whatever" im actually dead
Just to shitpost. How can we judge an anime in one episode, if you can't make your video about doing so, one episode as well?
Touche! hahaha
Kabaneri was a great first episode, and then Mumei brought it all down.
No, Biba destroyed that show. That guy's evil for the sake of being evil (and a minor, soulless revenge plot that means nothing to the audience)
Biba was a little underdeveloped but at least consistent as a character. Mumei went from being a badass in ep 1, knocking fucking Ikoma out of his bullshit, and then descended into retardedness the entire rest of the anime. She has 1 episode to so-called reclaim herself (i.e. ep 12) but really Ikoma's the one who'll salvage her from the depths of garbage since her pathetic self-ceneteredness makes her unbelieveably naive and unsophisticated, despite being the total badass in ep 1. I think it would've been fine if she descended into darkness to about halfway, picked her shit up, fought against Biba, and then later got subjugated and turned into a super shit which would've elicited at least some form of sympathy from me; but it took until ep 11 for her to turn around and realize she was being used like a dumbass. So ultimately I just can't respect her, I mean, just compare to fucking Ayame, I'd tap that shit any day over crybaby Mumei, and she's not even a main character.
The show started out 8.4 on MAL then crashed to 8.0, it's pretty disappointing considering the high hopes I had from salty Ikoma's declaration that'd he'd send the whole crew to hell with regrets about being basic bitches. The one save and grace is the music since I'm into that Aimer/Sawano shit and am a Gundam UC fan but if you weren't, then there's not much left. Pray for an op ep 12.
Kabaneri ended up being just another trash anime with whiny characters and a shitty villain.
the show was already going downhill since episode 4 and then and Biba made it worse
i'm so glad that you agree that the beginning of steins gate is as good as it is. i found myself enjoying a lot of the scenes you pointed out but not really knowing why or really giving a second thought about it. but when you look at the raw details it becomes very apparent of how well everything was put together, i never would have noticed why i loved the ending the scene with metal oopa so much if you hadn't pointed it out.
I think its fairly obvious why you cant judge an anime (or any show) by one episode alone. Some shows require progression and for the viewer to get familiar with the cast. Similarly, if an anime is 20 episodes long and you only watch one episode, you are judging an anime based off 1/20th of its overall content. Just like someone who has watched the whole anime is has a more valid opinion than someone who has only seen half of it, someone who has watched say 3 episodes has a more valid opinion than someone who has only watched one episode.
I wouldn't say "more valid". More informed is a better way to put it.
I think if one is very familiar with anime, it's easier to judge based off less information. So one could say, within the first episode "this show isn't for me" or "this show isn't worth my time". That's not to say that such a person will be correct 100% of the time but if it works even 90% of the time, that'd be good enough for most such people. After all, the idea of judging an anime without having watched all of it is to save time - so one doesn't spend an hour sitting through a show which bores them when they could have stopped after twenty minutes and tried something else.
+Cloud [2512] wouldn't you say that a more informed opinion is more valid than one that is less informed? I mean of course you can sometimes judge if it's your type of anime BUT we aren't always right in saying "it's not my type of anime. We can often times be wrong and be surprised by something new.
+Jerry Reyes Sure, in as far as anyone's opinion is ever "valid" on anything, I guess. I'd consider myself as likely to listen to someone tell me why the first ten minutes of a show didn't grab them as someone else telling me why, over the course of 200 episodes, that show made them cry, all other things being equal.
At least in my experience, sticking with a show I've decided I don't like has 99% resulted in me just getting further irritated and frustrated with the show. A show that can turn me around but doesn't do so within the first few episodes is a real rarity. Now whether that's influenced by my first impression is up for debate but given how unlikely I am to forgive a major misstep in a show I previously enjoyed - signs point to not really.
+Cloud [2512] well "valid" doesn't have to mean objectively true. It can simply mean to be justified. Someone who knows more is inevitably going to be more justified in their belief that the anime is good or bad. Similarly, someone who has finished a show and calls it a good anime is much more justified than someone who judged the entirety of the show in just a few episodes. Now I am not saying that you can't have an opinion without watching it all, but I do think that making your decision on only one episode is a bit close minded. Three to five episodes would be a good balance.
You may want to say that you are rarely wrong in judging based off of the first episode. Well that would seem to me to be a bit arrogant(no offense to you). Why? Because you are assuming that you are infallible in your judgment of the series. That also means that if you think something is not your cup of tea, then you will dismiss the show simply because it is not what you are expecting or hoping for. If we are genuinely looking for good anime, then we should be open to what an anime can offer despite our initial reactions or our biases. Because of this, I like the 3 episode rule or 5 episode rule. You don't spend too much of your time on something that might not be good at all, but you also give the anime the chance to prove itself.
The quality of the animation is usually at it's peak during the first episode. So if anything the show will be going downhill from there in some regards. The only anime I was hesitant over the first episode and then enjoyed was The Tatami Galaxy. Which is understandable given the uniqueness of the animation. One episode is hard to judge an entire series off of but if you don't like the feel of it, chances are that won't change. I think if you can verbally articulate what you didn't like in the first episode you can have a good guess at the rest of the show. If someone goes onto say they think the entire anime is bad after only the first episode though, that person is an idiot. You can't give a critical analysis from one episode, the best you can say is, "personally I didn't like it." Which is a good enough reason.
You hate Attack on Titan, and you admit that the first episode was really good...
see, if this is true, then I'm going to hate Code Geass. I watched the first episode & was bored to tears. It was generic, oddly paced, uninterestingly-unspecific about literally any of the plot, then deus ex machina'd the MC into mary-sue status.
What in god's name about Code Geass could be called generic?
+Digibro everything about it felt like it had be done twenty time before... again, it was only the first episode, but Japan taken over by some empire, kids lose their parents one decides he's Eren Jaeger, then he becomes Sora from No Game No Life, cut to high school, writers convenience makes him get caught between the empire & "terrorists" because of mech battle, girl he knows nothing about dies, he cries for a second, becomes Mary-Sue because she's actually not dead, end episode.
It was tropes upon bad writing upon bad pacing upon slightly above average animation...
lol I can't say I find Lelouche that cliche at all. I don't think his personality is much like Sora (he's way more self-serious) nor is he much like Erin in that his opponents aren't a force of nature. Idk if it's worth mentioning that Geass came out way before either of those shows anyways. I mean, if you describe anything as flippantly as this then it's gonna sound bad, but I think there's a lot more going on in that episode than you're giving it credit for, in terms of setting up a pretty interesting scenario.
yea i was bored out of my mind couldn't make it to the second episode
Wow, citing works that came a lot later doesn't help you to make your point... if you didn't like it's ok, but you're doing it wrong pal
great in-depth analysis! it's super refreshing to see this kind of thought put into reviewing the technical work that goes into making an effective audio/visual experience.
But like
You dislike Re:Zero
But it's turning out to be a rather great show.
he'd still probably dislike it, and honestly whether someone likes it or not I don't think it's quality has gotten any better or worse. For me it has the same strengths and weaknesses it had from episide 1 to now.
I found it to be a great concept, but the payoff was anticlimactic and by the time they got to the actual story I was so bored I just couldn't care anymore.
Wait, wait... He dislikes Re:Zero? That's the best god damn anime I've watched in several years. And, ironically considering this video, had a good first episode. Seriously, how the fuck could he like Steins;gate but not Re:Zero?
+matchesburn Steins:Gate is not the same as Re:Zero. It's about something differs and its execution of its ideas are done differently
Granddaddy Gundam
Dude, even GlassReflection drew parallels to Steins;Gate in his video about Re:Zero - for good reason, they're both the same core concept as time traveling (no, I'm not interested in yours or anyone elses' theories on Subaru's power and how it "actually" works) stories. Is the method different? Is the setting/world different? Obviously. However, at their core, both use time travel/"do-overs" as plot mechanics. The fact that they work differently is of no consequence. Nor do they have to be "the same" (by the way, I also didn't say that) to be compared and contrasted.
As for execution, that's merely your subjective opinion. Frankly, I find Steins;Gate to be an excellent series that, however, is still overhyped as hell. I enjoyed it, but it gets the same smug nonsense about just how amazing it is like, say, Inception did. Meanwhile, with Re:Zero, I'm enjoying each and every episode with anticipation (the week-to-week wait is agonizing). That doesn't mean it's better than Steins;Gate, but if given the choice I would rather watch Re:Zero because I love so many of the characters, the writing, and the story so far.
(Also, if all this is one long paragraph with no formatting, RUclips fucked up again. Sorry. I can't fix it.)
OK, here's the thing tho: Have you seen/read Berserk? And if not, what are you doing?
He has seen and read it
Granddaddy Gundam Very good.
I watched the anime 2 years ago, and I decided to read the manga just recently (chp 117) on the lost children arc.
Sir Saber Ah, good times :^) Shit's getting really heavy right now, I hope Miura can finish it before he kicks the bucket :\
***** That is mostly why I have been holding back reading it for the longest time. Just Imagine if he started putting chapters out weekly :P
Did you watch Monster? First episode doesn't show anything at all...
Tenma's conflicted nature regarding his choices and how he regrets them had me interested since ep 1
Specially the scene with the woman at the hospital.
Yes, exactly it's my favorite anime, but still the first episode doesn't look like a Thriller or any intense plot. It more looks like a casual doctor story and has none real hype moment or eyecatcher, basically it looks to serious and mature, but doesn't present us much content.
Still it's my favorite anime and i feel the same like you, that the side stories and side characters caught me in all the episodes and i lost many tears for this well done slice of life.
At first i thought was going to be a medical drama or something, yet i still found it very interesting, also, I was suspicious of the kid, so i kept watching, but i see your point.
The first episode of monster was brilliant...
I personally picked up the three episode test from reading Bakuman.
(If anyone hasn't read it, it's a slice-of-life about an artist and a writer trying to become mangaka together. Written by the Death Note team, highly recommend reading it, contains a lot of interesting stuff about manga creation.)
When submitting a series to a magazine, the mangaka submit the first three chapters, and the story is picked up or dropped based those three chapters.
Since most anime are based on manga, and the first three episodes often correspond to the first three chapters, by watching those three episodes you get the complete sales pitch the original creator was selling.
Really enjoyed this video, had a lot of interesting points. I generally only drop a series on the first episode if it's obviously not to my taste. I like this analysis.
"Yes this scene is convenient exposition but I already decided that I like this show so let's come up with bullshit reasons why this scene is good."
I know you're probably just a hater who doesn't know how to argue or do basic logic at that, but I'll ask anyway. In what way is his reasoning bad?
+Illyon / Aclean He basically says he likes the scene because Okabe moves around to show different parts of a room and it makes a reference to 1984. The scene itself is devoid of character, apart from Okabe being a conspiracy theorist, which has already been established and is pretty shallow anyway. Digibro just has this thing of pretending that every single thing is good in stuff he likes. If this exact same scene was in Erased, which he hated, he would be saying how this entire scene is boring and relying on kinda cool but kinda lazy directing.
the characters of Mayuri and Itaru are also further defined without any specific dialogue as description, making it indirect instead which is always a good thing. This whole "you on the other side of the screen" thing evolves a bit. It isn't over in a single humorous moment.
The scene is mostly exposition, that is correct and I won't deny it. But are you saying that it isn't well-done exposition?
Erased doesn't have any moe characters, other than children. Not so surprising why Digi prefers this one. I find it hilarious that he said this show has amazing character design when every girl character is just another moe design. That goes for Ruka too. We have the big boobed childish one, the shy one who has a crush for the main char (also trap), the silent glasses face, the sporty tomboy and the worst offender of them all: the character whose personality is literaly a maid cat girl. Just because it takes place in Akihabara and portrays moe culture, doesn't mean you should make every girl char moe, or make the male protagonists the black faces of nerds. I almost find the Big Bang theory more interesting with their characters.
+Illyon / Aclean For that I'd have to watch it again, which I sincerely do not want to do, since I still haven't gotten around to slogging through the final episodes. I don't really want to go through all my problems with the series now, since that's long and irrelevant, but I'm criticising Digi for not covering any potential problems with the episode.
What about the first episode of ,,Boku no hero Academia" AKA ,,My hero Academia", it's first episode was preety bad and made the show seem like a boring super hero show. (This changing in episode 2)
I have no problem with that episode. It established the world, the protagonist, his situation and ended in a nice cliffhanger.
IDK about that Fam, manga is on Fire right now
BluBoulzor It was good from the start, not great or amazing just good
+Víctor Andrés Hernández Patiño Well yeah but it made it seem like it was a typical hero anime. I mean did you expect that All Might would say ,,Yes'' or ,,No'' at the end of episode 1?
+BluBoulzor I searched up right now and an example would be ,,Hero Bank'' , it seems preety shit.
Is there another name for the anime at 0:53 cause I can't find it anywhere
It's the worst anime ever made, the Asterisk War
'The worst Anime ever made' you seem to not know many anime then. If you want to see something bad: Seikon no Qwaser (despite being cringey, edgy and bad as fuck I still got to EP3 before I stopped watching that thing).
But you sound just like IGN "Yeah I did not like MonMusu, I watched like 10 seconds of the first episode"
+Digibro well what's bad about it?
But I love Qwaser
I made a 4.5 hour video series about it.
Some decent amount of time ago, I think I started to watch this video, but stopped almost immediately because the first like, word or moment you mentioned about steins;gate made me think I'd love it, and I didn't want to know anything. I quickly forgot about it and this video.
Fast forward a year or two, and I'm starved for time travel content after binging the only 4 episodes of derrida who leaps through time. I literally searched the word "time" on crunchyroll and stopped at steins;gate, with the hint of a memory of hearing somewhere once that it might be a good show. I watched the entire series in the span of 24 hours, then, recalling that there was some video somewhere that went into detail about why it was good, I searched youtube and found this. One of my favorite things in the world is detailed breakdowns of stories, and what did and didn't work within them.
So basically, thank you. There's a chance I would have watched steins;gate if I hadn't happened upon this video however long ago, but honestly I don't know how big that chance would have been.
The entire concept of discovering an anime that is good from episode one isn't one of the most stupid things I've heard all week, but granted it is still pretty pointless. It seems like Digibrony is really trying to hammer the, "I own opinions, I'm trying to teach you how "I" think so you can be like "me." thing really hard in this video, which is primarily the reason why I unsubscribed all those years ago, but it looks like with a change of the channel name and a few more dabs of drug and alcohol abuse along with a smidgen of a God complex, it seems we have another shining example of why Digibrony doesn't think from a conventional, reliable standpoint simply because he wants to stand out and feel "original." If this logic were even remotely true ankles like Sword Art Online must be one of the crowning achievements of anime, which is an absolute fucking travesty by the way and that Fate/Zero Is generally terrible from its exposition dump of a first episode.
TL;DR I unsubscribed from Digibro a few years back because he constantly tried to force his views on his audience and I'm not surprised he's stayed the exact same way.
I too watched and loved Steins;Gate! I saw the thumbnail of a new episode and I was curios and clicked to read the synopsis. Watched the first episode and I was hooked! I've always loved stories revolving around the topic of time/ time travel (sci-fi genre overall) and also weird stories xD
24 minute video in 1 sentence: "You're stupid if you took more than one episode to like a show."
I think a good anime has good characters that people can relate and empathize with. Even if anime doesn’t start out good I think people should give it a chance since the show is just getting started. People have so many wonderful ideas and creativity that comes with anime and I’m so happy to see people making such beautiful works of art.